Felices Pascuas, Chag Pesach Sameach/Happy Passover, Happy Easter! All these greetings will be cheerfully expressed this week.
But this writer fondly recalls and heartily misses how his celebrated but now departed pal, NYPD Detective/TV-Movie Producer Sonny Grosso used to phone me and sing on the phone: “Buona Pasqua, my dear friend!” His words warmed my heart.
New York is one of the most linguistically and religiously diverse cities in the world, with about 80% of New Yorkers affiliated to some organized religion. It’s also estimated the City has about 2000 churches, 1000 synagogues and maybe 6000 places of worship overall.
For Italian Americans, like Sonny Grosso, attending church was a focal point of life. Grosso, the highly decorated detective who made the famous French Connection drug case that was turned into a 5-time Oscar winning movie, was around churches all his life. His family lived around the corner from Mt. Carmel Church (officially, The Church of Our Lady of Mount Carmel) on E. 115th Street in Italian Harlem.
But, as he wrote in his upcoming memoir, Harlem to Hollywood, Easter was always special for Sonny and his three sisters. After attending service, they would often go visit their grandfather for glorious dishes of pasta and Italian homemade gravy. Sonny recalled:
“I used to get a new suit every Easter, and my sisters used to get a new dress from top to bottom. We looked forward to dressing up being part of the festivities. Although, later on, when our father Benny passed away, our mother Lillian had to go on financial aid, and I didn’t get a full suit, just a pair of pants, while my sweet sisters would get a blouse or a hat, only. It was still fun to get something, although we were too young to realize we weren’t getting the full load, anymore. But our mother always did her best to keep us going and continue to provide a life for us, even if we had to settle for Jello and not pudding, because milk was too expensive.”
When the Grosso family moved to West Harlem, they began attending Church of the Annunciation, an area institution that had been founded in 1853, and was located at 88 Convent Avenue. Sonny recalled a funny but embarrassing story about his Confirmation at that church:
“It was mostly an all-Irish neighborhood back then. And this story would never have happened in an Italian neighborhood. My father said, ‘You’re having a godfather.’ This guy, my mother’s brother, Nunziata was about 6–4 and 275. They had three schools getting confirmed at the same time. I was the only guy who had this hulking fellow following him around the community and everybody’s head turned. Many of them chose the Priest’s name, Arthur, but my mother wasn’t having any of that. She wanted me to have my uncle’s name, Nunziata. But, the Church wasn’t going to let me use that name because it wasn’t a Saint’s name. Yet the church was called Annunciation Church. Go figure! Anyway, I didn’t want Salvatore as my middle name either. So, imagine having Nunziata on top of that. I would’ve felt like a leper. I started moaning, ‘Ma, I don’t want the name. I’ll be laughed at by the other kids.’ She finally gave in. My father’s father was Salvatore, but my mother’s father was Anthony. So, she made me go back with Anthony as my confirmation name choice. And, they say a rose by any other name would smell as sweet—well, not if you were called Nunziata!”
But Mt. Carmel always had a soft spot with Sonny Grosso. And one annual street festival touched his heart. Every August, the Giglio Society of East Harlem held the Giglio Feast, an Italian festival on the streets near Mt Carmel Church. The festival included the Society performing the “Dancing Giglio,” which has been an Italian tradition for over 125 years, and at its height, the feast was attended by over 100,000 people. Sonny recalled that people would come to the feast in buses from all over the country, and many came from Italy, and they would walk barefoot behind the Giglio in solemn procession.
It made a big impression on him. Giglio means “lily” which was his dear mother’s name (Lillian), and growing up, Sonny remembered looking down on the street festival from an open window while his father’s favorite song Amapola (in modern times sung by people like Andrea Bocelli) played over and over:
“I remember my mom and me watching my father down there at the street fair talking to the guys and being part of the scene, everyone loved my father and respected him. He’d be involved in the games they played with balls and prizes, people selling sausage sandwiches and the zeppoli. And, I was thinking, ‘That’s what I want to do when I grow up, I want to be like my dad.’ Years later, after being privileged to become an NYPD policeman and detective, I had the great honor of being asked to be Grand Marshall at the festival’s parade and I marched with the same priest, Father Peter Rofrano, who was my priest when I was a kid.”
A few years ago, Sonny was honored by the National Museum of Catholic Art and History in East Harlem, and Father Rofrano gave the award to him. Sonny added, “Father Peter fessed up to the audience that he’d once teased my mother that I wouldn’t amount to much. And, then he gave me that special award — it was touching. I had carved out my little career.”
Indeed, he had a celebrated career in the NYPD and then in the entertainment business, which included working as technical advisor on Oscar-winning and legendary films like The French Connection and The Godfather. Film critic James Monaco once observed, “Sonny Grosso has had a hand in most of the major cop films and television series of the 1970s.” And then Sonny spent over 20 years in Toronto and New York, producing almost 900 hours of award-winning movie/TV shows.
And, it's just karmic that the priest who eloquently presided over Sonny Grosso’s funeral services in 2020 was Rev. Msgr. Jamie Gigantiello, Pastor of Our Lady of Mount Carmel (Annunciation) in Brooklyn.
As Sonny used to also say: Moments. Make. Magic. As for this week’s holiday, Sonny Grosso, son of Harlem, is looking down on us, sending out greetings and love to all — Buona Pasqua!
And, since we’re in New York and baseball is underway, and since Sonny Grosso was a lifelong “Pinstripes” fan—Go Yankees!
FYI, click on the highlighted words to see links to the source story for this updated article. Also drop in on The French Connection’s famous car chase, to a story on Grosso’s technical advisor work on The Godfather movie (with a link to The Godfather trailer), and also a link to Sonny Grosso’s own magnificent send off when he passed in 2020.
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