"I was born June 24, 1916, at 25 Sheave Street in Boston's North End, which was then as now, though more so then, Little Italy ... . My mother, in the custom of her tribe, bore me in the same bed in which she connived me ... . "

So wrote John Ciardi, renowned poet, translator and teacher. I had long known of Ciardi's translation of Dante, and I knew he was Italian American, but I did not know he had been born in the North End. Truthfully, I don't recall now how I discovered that he was. But what matters is that he was a North Ender, that it meant something to him, and that it means something to the North End to remember it.

Read more

Source: http://bostoniano.info/