Beyond the red neon sign at the entrance to this innocuous rowhouse on South 12th Street., there’s a little vestibule and a door with no handle. We press the antique buzzer, and a narrow window slides open to reveal doorman Guido Martelli’s friendly face: “Membership card, please.” 

The reedy tunes of a live accordion filter past him through the opening on a stromboli-scented breeze as he inspects my nervous host’s paperwork. Then the door swings open toward us, the club rules are noted (among them, “No … reviewing”), and we’re allowed to pass through the curtains into the checkerboard-floored wonderland of Italian American history that is the Palizzi Social Club.