It began as a late-night surprise: street grinding and repainting of double-yellow lines on Adams Street on June 26, three weeks before the beginning of the 90th anniversary of the community’s major Italian annual celebration. Mayor Fuller defended the removal of long-standing Italian green-white-red stripes, saying that the double-yellow lines were a safety measure, and that neighborhood volunteers could paint the green-white-red stripes next to the yellow lines as a way of honoring their heritage. She termed the measure as a “win/win” for the community — ensuring safety while honoring heritage.
The community’s outrage quickly spread beyond the Nonantum neighborhood, throughout Newton and into the local print, radio, television, and social media.
Early in the morning on Wednesday, July 16 – the first day of the festival – police detained and released a local resident who had painted the stripe on a small section of Adams Street. At the same time, members of the St. Mary of Carmen Society – sponsors of the five-day festival – determined that they would not paint or decorate Adams Street, even under the City’s guidelines. Media coverage continued over the next two days. All three Boston affiliate television stations sent crews to cover the opening day of the festival. Both the Herald and the Globe covered the Festa/Adams Street issue at least twice, and the Italian newspaper, La Stampa, also carried an article about Adams Street.
For days, houses on Adams Street flew Italian flags and displayed a variety of signs with “The Lake” – the emblem of the neighborhood. Then, in the very early hours of Saturday, July 19, a larger section of Adams Street was transformed with Italian tricolor stripes generally covering the double-yellow lines. The Newton Police did not discover or detain anyone in the act of painting the stripes. The sudden appearance of the stripes added to the general enthusiasm of the neighborhood.
On Saturday night, Society Vice President Carl Pasquarosa and Festival Chair Chuck Proia told Fig City News that it ”was relayed to us we could paint the (remaining) lines between 1:00 a.m. and 5:00 a.m…..” The challenge for the phantom painters was that by that time, they had very little paint left to finish the job. But by early morning, much of the double-yellow line was transformed into the tricolor stripes — to the elation of the neighborhood.
Although the St. Mary of Carmen Society represents the community’s longstanding ties to San Donato Val di Comino — and many of the residents are third- and fourth-generation descendants of the original Italian settlers in Nonantum — the community has been a gateway for new a variety of immigrants since the Irish first came in the 1840s to escape famine. Rising to the visible, voluble defense of the Society was the Adams Street Shul, the oldest synagogue in Newton, just down Adams Street from Our Lady Help of Christians Parish — home to the Society and the Madonna celebrated during Festa.
Jordan Lee Wagner, the former treasurer of the synagogue, described Nonantum as “the last neighborhood in Newton.” The Adams Street Shul, listed on the National Historic Register, was built in 1911, about twenty-years after the first Jewish immigrants arrived in Nonantum, fleeing the pogroms and persecution of Eastern Europe. Mr. Wagner noted that what they found in the Italian community was a neighborhood and neighbors who accepted them. “We have been really good neighbors to one another for a very long time,” he said, explaining, “When we see green-white-red, we see our neighbors.”
To demonstrate its solidarity with the Italian community, the Shul decorated its fence with small Italian flags and a strong statement of support. In recognition of that support, the Society’s Sunday procession through the neighborhood, with the statue of the Madonna, stopped at the Shul to present a Nonantum T-shirt to Mr. Wagner and a bouquet of green, white, and red flowers to Congregation president Beri Gilfix. On the statue’s return trip to the church on Sunday night, the procession stopped in front of the Shul to set off a spectacular explosion of fireworks.
On Monday night, July 21, the day after the close of Festa, Dan Rea, host of WBZ Radio’s Nightside, aired his third program about Adams Street. He asked Teresa Gentile Sauro, president of the Nonantum Neighborhood Association, if she knew who painted the stripe lines on the street. She quoted her grandfather, a founding member of the Society: “Those who say they know, don’t know. Those that know don’t say.”
