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TAYLOR STREET ARCHIVES
www.taylorstreetarchives.com
“It was a Glorious Time.”
The Lupino Gang
by
Freddie Mancini
I grew up on Carpenter Street, just 2 blocks east of Sheridan
Park. As a pre-teenager during the 1960s (age 8-9), I belonged to
the notorious “Lupino Gang.” For the uninformed, a lupino is a
bean that has been marinated in water and salt. During the early
history of Taylor Street, the lupino man would blow his horn to
announce his coming as he pushed his cart down the streets of
Little Italy.
The other members of the gang were:
Jerry “cats” Meatta, Billy “Rats” Taran, John “Hector” Icobazzi,
James “Ricky” Romano, and Mario “Skippy” DePaolo.
This was our “MOS” and how the Lupino Gang got its name. We
would knock on the door of a neighbor’s house and leave a lupino
as our calling card.
Nothing was more exciting than picking our next victim; deciding
on who would scout out the house in advance to be sure no one
was around to finger us; which member of our gang would ring
the doorbell; and who would drop the lupino bean on the door
step just before we ran off.
Some of the neighbors, going along with our pre-pubescent
prank, would, upon opening the door and spotting the lupino
bean on their door step, yell out, “The lupino gang strikes again!”
It was a glorious time growing up on Taylor Street.
P.S. The nicknames are another story. But I’ll leave that for
another Taylor Street alumnus to tell it.
Freddie Mancini
Upon my return to Taylor Street, after decades of being away to
raise my family, I am reintroduced to everyone as follows, “You
remember Josie from Sheridan Park…well this is Josie’s son.”
When I won the raffle (a brand new BMW car) at the Shrine of
Our Lady of Pompeii’s Annual Summer Fest, the word that
passed through the crowd and the neighborhood was, “Josie’s son
won the BMW.”
This site, the Taylor Street Archives, is dedicated to the memory
of all of those Taylor Street mothers who nurtured their Taylor
Street children through a time and place unmatched by any
other. The Profiles of those strong willed mothers who nurtured
us through the great depression (and other, not so visible
obstacles of similar magnitude) will be found in these archives.…
Vince Romano