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Kathryn Finegan Clark: By the Way -- Fra Diavolo surfaces in Bristol

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I didn’t intend it to be a sentimental journey. But it turned out that way. My husband and I took advantage of the holiday weekend to drive to Levittown to drop off some Easter treats for my nephews.

Both, professional musicians, are COVID-19 survivors still recovering from long days in hospitals and we wanted to do something to brighten their lives.

It was a gorgeous day and so we decided to drive around a bit in the lower end of the county, where I grew up. I was living in Lower Makefield when my husband-to-be and I met in Langhorne. He was reared in New York State but had moved back to Bristol where his mother’s family had deep roots.

First, we searched for his mother’s childhood home in a tiny village called Wheatsheaf. No luck there. It’s gone – and so is the village – but Wheatsheaf Road still exists.

Then we drove to Bristol and a flood of memories engulfed me. It was so different and so much the same – but at the same time so much better.

We stopped to look at the house where I grew up – updated with a shining glass door replacing the old summertime screen door, landscaped greenery pretty enough to shame the old evergreens where I played hide-and-seek and a new driveway.

It housed a million memories but the one that popped out was of my grandmother sprinkling holy water around the house on Easter Saturday. I wondered if people still do that.

I recall Bristol as a wartime town and a bit later on in decline with many young families moving to Levittown. It has now undergone gentrification and what was a somewhat sad place, has, thanks to community activism and some grant money, become a happening place.

Nowhere is that so evident as it is on Mill Street, the main drag, once anchored by the Grand Theatre, where I spent many star-struck hours. That’s gone, and so are the old businesses that lined the street leading to the Delaware River. Practically all have been replaced by inviting new shops, and Bristol is well on the way to becoming another riverside tourist town.

And why not? It has it all. It’s pretty much always had that but it’s faded in and out. Now, its amazing renaissance has made everything look better – from Colonial Era homes to Victorian mansions lining Radcliffe Street. Handsome from the street, they have to be seen from the river to be fully appreciated.

A bit hungry, we stopped at a little restaurant called Itri Wood Fired Pizza Bar and found ourselves surrounded by the charm of Italy. No surprise either. I grew up with second- and third-generation Italians whose families had come to this country to work in the Grundy Textile Mill, whose clock tower is a Bristol icon. Those friends enriched my childhood in so many ways.

Itri, I discovered, is named for a town near Naples with an ancient history. It was the home of Michele Pezza, a chef also known as Fra Diavolo, a popular guerrilla leader who fought against the French occupation of Naples in the 16th century.

His descendant, Ernesto Pezza, emigrated from Italy to Bristol, and Ernesto’s grandson, Greg Pezza, is co-owner of Itri. The restaurant’s logo is an image of Fra Diavolo, and his portrait hanging on the old exposed brick wall adds atmosphere to the cozy little restaurant.

Itri has now expanded into Bristol’s Center for the Arts next door. The COVID-19 pandemic forced the center to close, but on the pavement on its Walk of Fame, we found a tribute to Joseph Sagolla, champion of the arts. This was especially meaningful to me. A print of his painting of my father’s drugstore, Finegan’s Pharmacy, has been hanging in my living room for years.

kathrynfclark@verizon.net


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