Monsignor Sal Polizzi, whose efforts to organize and preserve The Hill neighborhood in the city gained national attention in the 1970s, died Monday night at Mother of Good Counsel nursing home in Northwoods. He was 92. Polizzi, while associate pastor of St. Ambrose Catholic Church, was a founder of The Hill 2000 booster organization still active today in the heavily Italian-American enclave.

In 1981, Polizzi was reassigned a few miles north to St. Roch Catholic Church in the Skinker-DeBaliviere neighborhood, where he was pastor until his death. He also was active in community revitalization efforts there. But it was on The Hill where Polizzi made his name. In 1971, he played a key role in community efforts that, against all odds, got federal officials to approve an overpass connecting two parts of the neighborhood that would have been split by the new Interstate 44.