The house the little Italian boy was born in is long gone. It's now just a field of weeds and garbage, another empty lot in a city of abandoned homes. As is the grade school he attended, and middle school, too. The church where he was baptized and joined Scouts with other sons of Italian immigrants has been decommissioned. It sits locked and empty on South 7^th Street.

The bakery where he would buy hot rolls and Italian bread, and crash after late nights on the town, is only open part time, a lone survivor on a strip of abandoned buildings. The speakeasies where he dealt cards and gambled on a nascent singing career are boarded up and derelict, too.