Staff, patrons remember Dallas restaurateur Tom Ruggeri as a great entertainer and friend
Anytime Paula Scholz hears an Elvis song, she thinks of Tom Ruggeri. She worked with him for 18 years, starting as a waitress, shuttling cocktails back and forth, then moving upward at Ruggeri’s restaurant to help with the business and, as she tells it, lovingly battle in a way you’d expect from a family-run joint. “He and I fought like cats and do...
The Holocaust in Focus: Italy
Each year on January 27, the United Nations remembers the many people of Jewish origin affected by the Holocaust and this day is officially called the "International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust" (Il Giorno della Memoria). To remember the victims of the Holocaust, on Wednesday, January 27, 2021 the ICCC in collabor...
Louis DiRosa, New Orleans judge for 29 years, dies at 94
Louis Anthony DiRosa, who served the legal profession for 62 years as a lawyer and a judge in New Orleans, died Dec. 16 at his Metairie home. He was 94. DiRosa established his private law practice after earning a law degree at Loyola University in 1950. He was elected a Civil District Court judge in 1983. Even though DiRosa left office in 1996, he...
Tivoli Circle & Victory Place as a Blue Star Memorial for Veterans in New Orleans
During 1807-1810 the New Orleans City Council established the legal name of the street as Tivoli Circle. The name has never been changed. In 2020, The New Orleans City Council passed motion M-20-170 to remedy mistreatment of immigrant groups such as Italians by changing street names. That motion did not include renaming streets which honor Italians...
Joseph DeSalvo, who traded corporate law to sell books, dies at 88
Joseph DeSalvo Jr., a New Orleans native who set aside corporate law to open Faulkner House Books in the French Quarter and make it a literary destination, died Tuesday at Touro Infirmary. He was 88. His life as a bookseller followed a career that included stints in New York, Houston and New Orleans as an attorney at Exxon, Tenneco and Good Hope Re...
New Orleans would mistreat Italian Americans by denying Tivoli Circle
The city of New Orleans should retain Tivoli Circle as the name of the land 400 feet north of The National WWII Museum. Renaming Tivoli Circle is not authorized by City Council motion M20-170 and reinforces the seventh “Whereas” clause which states: “New Orleans troubling history of mistreatment and violence toward immigrant groups.” Taking away th...
Petition Goes Live To Change Governor Nicholls Street To Cosimo Matassa Street
The following is an open letter to Mayor Cantrell and the City of New Orleans from Rob Florence who is urging the City to rename Governor Nicholls Street to Cosimo Matassa Street. To sign the petition and show your support, click here and here. Hello Mayor and City Council, as you and the City Council Street Renaming Commission work to remove Conf...
Take a look inside the new Italian Heritage Museum in League City
League City’s Italian Heritage Museum will welcome guests starting Saturday morning. Dubbed a soft opening, it is just the beginning for the museum that honors the contributions Italian families have made to League City. “It will be open Tuesdays through Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. for tours,” said Monica Hughes, director of the Butler Longhor...
Houston gets the nation’s first show of Italian drawings from the 20th century
As rewarding as it can be to see familiar, iconic artworks in museums, discovering a piece or an artist for the first time is thrilling — and even better when it opens windows into new galaxies. I had that sense throughout “Silent Revolutions” at the Menil Drawing Institute, which for me became “silent revelations.” Italian drawings of the 20th cen...
Sicily, Louisiana Style
If you're a Louisiana native with a distinctly Italian last name, you've got lots of company here. Since the late nineteenth century, more families of Sicilian descent have called Louisiana home than anywhere else in the world except Sicily. This is a topic that has fascinated Loyola history professor, Justin Nystrom – enough to compel him to recor...
Members of Louisiana ISDA Lodges Honor Ancestors on All Souls Day
All Souls' Day is also known as the Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed and the Day of the Dead. It is a day of prayer and remembrance for the souls of those who have died. It is a celebration full of traditional food and family. The newly formed ISDA St. Rosalie Lodge in Monroe Louisiana consists of members who have been attending the ble...
Silent Revolutions: Italian Drawings from the Twentieth Century
Nov 14, 2020 – Apr 11, 2021. Menil Drawing Institute - 1533 Sul Ross Street. Houston, Texas 77006. Silent Revolutions: Italian Drawings from the Twentieth Century, the first large-scale survey of twentieth-century Italian drawings mounted in the United States. The exhibition, presenting works largely selected from the Collezione Ramo in Milan, will...