Newark N.J. sons & daughters - Connie Francis

'This is your life' MC Ralph Edwards surprises singer Connie Francis introducing her 4th grade teacher Ms Ida Charles from Newark, N.J. on 15 May 1961.

Ralph Edwards and Bobby Darin (real name: Walder Robert Cassotto) who used to woo Connie Francis (Concetta Rosa Maria Franconero ) when she still lived in Newark, N.J. in the mid-1950s.

Bobby Darin performs at the Mosque Theater, in Newark, N.J. on 13, 14 & 15 November 1959; Teddy Randazzo and Jo-Ann Campbell of 'I ain't got no steady date' were also in the bill. 

Connie having breakfast with Dad, Mum & her secretary Joyce Becker in Newark, 1960. 

Connie with both Mum & Dad plus UK DJ Lonnie Starr in London, 1960.

Marty Allen & Mitch De Wood (pre-Steve Rossi) at the Broadway Lounge in Newark in 1959. 

Concetta Franconero aka Connie Francis on Parade in Newark, N.J. 

Connie on the same day... 

Fixing up to fly to the USA

Rua Brigadeiro Tobias, 613, 2nd floor - at Luz, São Paulo in 2020. 

 

It's awesome to be able to look at a picture of what was my travel agent's office building through Google's GPS. Hers was a one-room office on the 2nd floor in which she had her desk in the centre of the room, a telephone and a couple of file-cabinets. There was a lift with scissors-gate always parked on the ground floor. The outside of the building was plastered with plain-cement (now it's covered with off-white tiles).

I remember the first time I entered her office with the door that opened to the hall always open, with Ms Wielenska sitting at her desk with her back to the window which looked onto rua Brigadeiro Tobias.

She was very meticulous in the instructions she gave her client regarding the various steps one should take to behave like an international citizen when one had to go through imigration and customs. Since the very beginning I felt we had a partnership: she'd give the plot and I would follow zealously to the letter. She asked me my job history and I told her I had been working as a clerk at Sao Paulo's Bar Association for a year.

It didn't take Licia long to come out with a fautless plan on how to secure a US entry-visa for someone in my circumstances. As I had been working at that office on Largo São Francisco for a year nothing more natural than to spend my yearly-vacation visiting the USA. I would spend 3 weeks in New York City and Washington, as there was a free-of-charge trip from NYC to Washington to those who purchased a Rio-NYC-Rio ticket. She told me I had to prepare myself psychologically for I might be  summoned by the US Consulate in São Paulo to be interviewed personally.

Even though I didn't know then, Licia was a Capricorn, born on 16 January 1933. That's why we hit it off so fast. She was a 38 year-old lady who had a 10 year-old daughter called Regina. I never knew much about Licia's private life but I knew she cared. I knew she had a brother called Linneu Espalato who worked at the Polícia Federal quarters on the very rua Brigadeiro Tobias, just one block away. 

Every time Licia spoke the word 'aeroporto' (airport) she mispronounced as 'arioporto' which is not really uncommon but made it more conspicuous in Licia's case due to her business being centred around airports. 

Whenever Licia explained something related to air-fare prices and she had to show how much a cruzeiro was worth in US dollar she wrote the @ symbol. Like, Cr$... @ US$... is equal to: That was the first time I ever saw the symbol @ being used - 40 years before it became a daily affair with the advent of the Internet. 

Nino & I 

Ever since Nino & Myself left the Army in mid-1968, we drifted from job to job. I had worked as a typist for newspaper 'Folha de S.Paulo' for six months while Nino had been a clerk at Mappin, a great department-store in town which his own father had worked for years before retiring. Nino was notorious for not holding a job for too long. He was too unconventional to last at any position. He would start alright, become the darling of the office but soon enough he would grow bored with the mortifying routine and did something outrageous. Then he would be invited to quit or he himself left with no qualms. 

There was another time when Nino worked as a clerk at Club Athletico  Paulistano, a social club for the upper class on Rua Honduras. I remember once I went there to see him one day; he left the Club through a non-social gate on Rua Estados Unidos, next to Rua Augusta. Needless to say he didn't last long there either. These 2 jobs was all Nino held during the time we were friends. 

After a bad spell with no work, I was lucky to have found me a fairly good paying job as a clerk at Sao Paulo Bar Association (AASP) in April 1970, at Largo São Francisco, at the heart of the city. Once I settled there I was adamant to make that old dream of going to the USA come true. 

At that time in 1970, Nino met José Luis aka Pepe, a Spanish young man who was on his way from Spain to Northern California where he planned to establish himself for a few years. They had a hot romance in São Paulo. Pepe promised Nino he would wait for Nino's visiting him in San Francisco as soon as he got settled there. 

At first, I thought Nino would speed up our plans a little but I was completely mistaken. As soon as Pepe left for the US and the novelty wore off, Nino went back to his old bad ways of 'living for today'. So I made up my mind: I would stop talking to him about 'going to the US' and work my way towards this goal in utter silence. 

We still met often but I was mum! Nino usually showed up at lunch time at Largo São Francisco; we would have a bite at some eating place and talked for 2 hours. Sometimes he showed up in the evening and we talked until we dropped. But I never breathed a word about my plans. I knew it wouldn't do any good. And I was right.

Around May 1971, I hit the big time when Fernando, my older brother, came home one day and said his friend Bernardo Cerântola who had gone to live in the USA, was back in Brazil. He and a friend of his had lived in the New York City area for a whole year (1970-1971) and told wonders about the place. I begged Fernando to ask Bernardo details on how he managed to make that trip. 

Two days later, Fernando came home with a scrap of paper with the address of a travel-agent in town who took care of all the paper-work. I went to see her immediately, had a long talk with her; I must confess I liked Licia at first sight and decided to do whatever necessary to get mission accomplished. Mind you, I kept Nino in the dark about the whole thing. I was afraid he would find fault on the project as he was known to have done before and abort the plan.

Rua Brigadeiro Tobias corner with Rua Washington Luiz at Luz, São Paulo in 2020.

I was in a really happy and excited mood in the ensuing days. I asked Licia the price of the air-fare; US$ 1,600 which was a lot of dough in 1971. She said I could pay on instalments. 

But that wasn't exactly my main concern at the time. I had to put Licia's plan into practice. The first thing I did after talking to Mum & Dad, was to have a little conversation with Yvone Biolcatti, my boss at AASP. I told her about my plan to travel to the USA and try to stay there the longest possible. I told her I would have to get a letter from our employer stating I intended to visit the US during my 4-week annual leave in October 1971. As Yvone was executive secretary to the board of director she had some clout and explained my plan to Dr. Antonio Carlos Malheiros. He wanted to see me personally, so I was summoned into the room and told him the whole thing. He was sympathetic to me and agreed to sign a letter addressed to the US Consulate stating I wanted to visit their country as a part of a reward for having worked diligently during the last 12 months. That must have been August 1971. 

I went back to see Licia with Dr. Malheiros' letter, my passport and proof of income from the bank which my monthly-pay was deposited by AASP. Licia sent it all to the Consulate and waited for their reply which didn't take long. By early September I received a note saying I was being requested to present myself at a certain date at the US Consulate at Conjunto Nacional, on Rua Padre João Manuel corner with Avenida Paulista to be interviewed by some official there. I think I was interviewed by the vice-consul himself. I remember he smoked a pipe, which was unusual in Brazil. He seemed to be a calm person and I felt at ease with him. He asked me whether he could pose the questions in English and I said yes! He wanted to know why I wanted to visit the USA. 

I had all figured out before I got there. I told him I admired the American democracy; I said something about Abraham Lincoln and righteousness, even though I didn't use this exact word. I think the vice-consul was positively impressed by my discourse which was given in Portuguese. I felt he was rather friendly to myself; after a while he told me to wait outside. I went out and sat in the main room with other people waiting. It didn't take long for my name to be called out by a clerk at a counter. She gave me my passport back with an Entry Visa to the USA valid for 3 months. All of a sudden I was walking on clouds. I said 'Thank you' and left the office almost like Gene Kelly in 'Singing in the rain' or Julie Andrews in 'The sound of music'.

It was a little before noon. I walked Avenida Paulista, turned right on Rua da Consolação, walked two blocks down, turned left at Rua Maceió and turned right again at Avenida Angelica, where my Father worked in the back lot of an Orthopaedic Clinic. From his workshop in the back I could see the back of Teatro Record, on Rua da Consolação.  

This is where I leave off describing how I managed to get things fixed up to travel to the USA. I ended up staying there much longer than 3 weeks but this I have told somewhere else in this blog.    

After coming back from my American experience in late March 1973, I kept in contact with Licia paying her a visit whenever I needed to exchange dollars into cruzeiros. Every time I tried to go back to the US, Licia was the one I headed to. Some time in the latter part of the 1970s, Licia decided to visit the USA herself. She flew 'low season' to visit Newark, New York and Washington. It must have been January or February for while Licia walked on the icy sidewalks she slipped, fell hard on the floor. She ended up breaking a leg and was in deep trouble for she had to pay top dollars to have her leg fixed and plastered. Her winter holiday was over and she flew back to Brazil as soon as she could.

Licia told me she had dinner with Tia Eugênia. They seemed to like each other and probably made business too. Licia also had a special friendship with Haroldo Cunha, who had been living in 'America' for quite some time. These are the only people I remember Licia quoting.

Hotel Terminus on the corner of Rua Brigadeiro Tobias and Rua Washington Luiz in 1939. It was the most luxurious and sophisticated hotel in the city. It was opened in September 1922, and quoted by the New York Times as being one of the best hotels in South America.

Hotel Terminus was impounded by the federal government of President Getúlio Vargas in 1943, maybe due to overdue taxes. The owners built a new hotel on Avenida Ipiranga but the shine was gone.

Uma foto dos artistas modernistas de 1922, no hall do Hotel Terminus, é constantemente informado (erroneamente) ter sido tirada durante a Semana de Artes Modernas de 1922. O que obviamente não é verdade pois o hotel foi inaugurado alguns meses depois desse evento.

Every time I remember those years, (1969, 1970 & 1971) I wanted so bad to go and live in the USA, one person looms out of all... and this is Licia Espalato Wielenska. Licia was much more than a travel agent. Licia was a good-hearted human being who did business in a friendly and humane way. 

Just for one to see how special Licia was, when the day for my departure to New York came, which was on 1st October 1971, a  Friday evening, I took a cab to Congonhas Aeroporto, with my family, and as soon as we got there, who did I see? Licia was already there along with her 10-year old Regina. This is definitely not part of a travel agent's duties. Licia wanted to make sure I'd follow all her instructions and was rooting for me. 

Licia brought a box of chocolate for me to take to Dona Eugênia, who had a news agency on 112 Ferry Street, in Newark, N.J., the place I was supposed to go in order to get myself settled in the US. Little did I know I would be in Newark in the next 12 hours. 

Rua Brigadeiro Tobias which starts off Praça do Correio in 1947. See Água Raza bus #60.

Passengers queue up to enter the tarmac of Congonhas Airport in São Paulo to board their planes while relatives and friends wave them goodbye from the balcony in the background. That's exactly what happened to me when I flew to New York even though it was already dark when I boarded the plane bound to Rio where I boarded a bigger jet that flew overnight. 

Congonhas Airport in 1959, seen from yet another angle... before the appearance of those tube that connect passengers straight into the airplane... 

LICIA 

She had her travel agency, made up of just one room on the 3rd floor of a building on Rua Brigadeiro Tobias, on the outskirts of Estação da Luz. Its address was given to me by Bernardo Cerântola, a friend of Fernando, my brother. Bernardo had gone to the United States in 1970, and being back, he told interesting things about there, which Fernando ended up telling me. 

 

It was 1971, or the end of 1970, and my determined intention to travel, and if possible live in the USA, was great. I don't remember if I asked Fernando to ask Bernardo how to do this, but one day he showed up at the house with the dream address. I had met Bernardo in 1961, as we were both in primary school at the Vila Madalena Gymnasium, on Rua Morás, although I could not consider him a friend as we never interacted. Bernardo had gone to the USA with a friend, and they both came back together too. I didn't know much more than that.

I went into her office and said that I knew Bernardo, and I would like to go to the U.S.A. too. She was very friendly to me and already outlined on paper all the procedures I would have to follow to get a passport, buy a ticket, get a tourist visa at the American consulate, etc. I left there somewhat exultant, as I felt, for the first time, that the old dream of visiting New York, ‘capital of the world’, was becoming increasingly possible.

Licia, who was always very smart, studied my case carefully, and saw a strong possibility of getting an entry visa, which was always the hardest part. I worked at AASP (São Paulo Lawyers Association), and my salary wasn't the worst. I had already been working there for a year, and it would be the exact time for me to apply for a tourist visa from the consulate, with the intention of going there for a well-deserved vacation. I already had a certain amount saved, and I would complete what was missing in the next few months.

My co-workers at AASP used to make fun of me, because I always wore the same black jacket, which I sometimes turned inside out to wear the red side. I didn't spend on clothes or any superfluous products, as my main objective was NYC. 

 

When the time was right, that is, the time when I had already saved enough, I asked Yvone Biolcatti, my boss and executive secretary of AASP, to ask Dr. Antonio Carlos Malheiros, advisor to that association, to write a letter addressed to the American Consulate saying that employee X was going to the USA on well-deserved annual leave. These were the instructions I received from Licia. He called me into the boardroom, I explained the situation, and he kindly signed the letter, which I took to Licia, at Brigadeiro Tobias.

Licia sent all the paperwork to the Consulate and there they decided to interview me. Licia did not let on whether this procedure was good or bad. She just instructed me on the issue of insisting on my status as a tourist extremely interested in the history and attractions of that country. I went to Conjunto Nacional, on Av. Paulista, for the interview.  I was interviewed by the vice consul himself. He was smoking a pipe, and asked if he could speak to me in English. I responded affirmatively, even though I was going to respond in Portuguese.  He seemed really nice to me, being in his 30s. He asked me about the points there that interested me, and I think I was convincing in my admiration for such an entrepreneurial and developed country. I noticed that he felt proud of his country, and I felt proud of my cunning and trickery. In the end, he asked me to wait for the answer outside, and 5 minutes later, an employee gave me my passport back with the statement that the visa had been issued. Hallelluya!!!

My dreams were getting closer and closer to coming true.  I left there looking like I was on cloud nine and walking straight to Avenida Angélica to tell my Father that I had gotten the biggest asset of all: authorization to go to the United States. Everything revolved around obtaining this visa to begin the process of financing the Varig air ticket, which would be issued in João Amorim's name and endorsed by Dr. Jorge Kulassarian, orthopedist at the Angélica Fracture Clinic, where my Father worked since 1961. I think my Father was happy too, as he had always encouraged non-Orthodox endeavors, since my choice to become a priest, when I was 9 years old, as this other, crazy, about going to try a life in New York.

I hadn't said anything to Nino yet. Nino always passed by Largo de São Francisco, where I worked on the 13th floor of the São Paulo Lawyers Association, to wander around the center or eat somewhere. I hadn't revealed anything about my entire transaction with Lícia, as I thought Nino was very negative. We had already planned to go to the USA several times, but nothing came of it.  When I found out about Licia, I didn't say anything to him, because he would inevitably 'discontact', or find some obstacle. Even after getting the visa I remained silent. Now it was just a matter of finalizing the financing of the ticket, scheduling the boarding day and leaving.

Prudential old Gothic bldg

Broad & Market Streets corner in 1929. 

1906. 

Lucas Konrad-Parisi wrote: The Customs House on the right is now Burlington, and everything else is Prudential, or was built by Prudential.

Dean M. Sonnenberg wrote: Renowned New York City Architect, George B. Post, designed the Prudential Building to the far-left in 1890. The beautiful 1894 Federal Building, which some people call Custom House, also housed the Post Office (on Broad St. and Academy Street) was designed by Jeremiah O’Rourke.

This block on Broad Street is where the National Newark Building is today (744 Broad Street). The second Mutual Benifit Life Insurance bulding is the one with the tall columns. It was built in 1908 and demolished in 1926 to make way for the National Newark Building. You can see in the distance the second Fireman's Insurance building (built 1910) and the First Presbyterian Church. Missing is the Kinney Building which wasn't built until 1913. Also visible is the Howard Savings Institution building with it's short columns. Trolleys' true colour was red not green as in this colourization.

An opposite view from the previous photo. This is looking from the First Presbyterian Church to the Mutual Benefit Life Insurance Building. You can see in that the Kinney Building has been built.

Doug Douglass wrote in Facebook: Next to church, 12-story First National State Bank, 810 Broad St., built in 1912. 2014: Indigo boutique hotel. Today 810 Gibson, 100 apartments.

Jule Spohn wrote: Great photo, Glenn. What year? I see that 744 Broad St., National Newark & Essex Bank has not been built yet.

Author answers: Sometime between 1913 (Kinney Building built) & 1926 (Mutual Benefit building demolished). But most of these types of postcards were from 1914-1915 which I would say would be closer.

(Air) ways to get into the USA

I flew to New York, USA in 1971, on a Varig airplane. Varig was the Brazilian international carrier then. It is no more today. All flights to the USA and Europe started from Rio de Janeiro. As I lived in São Paulo I had to take a 'domestic flight' from Congonhas Airport to Galeão in Rio. It took around 9 hours to get from Rio to JFK in NYC. 

As time went by and I settled in the US, I realized that most people I met from South America arrived in the US through Aerolineas Peruanas or Braniff International Airways. Here are some 1950s ads I've got from the Brazilian Reader's Digest. 

In the late 1950s, the flight from Rio de Janeiro to New York City took 'only' 25 hours and 3 minutes, according to this Braniff ad. One would take off from Rio on a DC-6 and fly over the Andes to Lima. From Lima it would fly to Guayaquil (Ecuador), Panama, Havana (Cuba) and finally New York.

Braniff and Aerolineas Peruanas ran more-or-less the same route from Rio de Janeiro to New York City in the late 1950s.

Rockefeller Center on 5th Avenue off 50th Street with Varig Brazilian Airlines offices on the right in May 1962.

12 February 1961 - 10 years before I flew to New York the air-fares were a lot cheaper. Look at these Varig prices. I paid more than double those prices in 1971; 19 February 1961 - on the right Braniff also advertises their low prices at Estadao (a week later).

Real - Aerovias Brasilia - flew from Rio de Janeiro to Mexico City and Los Angeles twice a week. They don't say how long the trip took (maybe) not to frighten their customers. They only extolled the virtues of their food and the excitiment of visiting such marvelous cities. The planes had stop-overs at Manaus, Bogota (Colombia), Mexico City and finally Los Angeles.

6 May 1960 - ad in S.Paulo's daily OESP - Loja para brasileiros em New York - stores especially catering for Brazilians who spoke little English. 

9 April 1961 ad in S.Paulo daily OESP from Victor Appliance Co. on 22 Albany Street, catered for Brazilian middle class who had their shopping done in Manhattan. Note that Victor is 'soon moving to 46th Street' where Brazilians of all persuasions have congregated since then.

Victor Appliance Co. had been selling TVs, radios, stereos, lingeries, linen, nylons to Brazilians for 15 years. They had a van-service Brazilians could use just ringing them up.

23rd June 1963 - Varig's Boeing 707 takes off from Rio de Janeiro's Galeão Airport at 11:00 pm and arrives in NYC at 7:30 in the morning. You fly during night-time which has got less turbulence. After a hearty dinner you will have a nice sleep. At 7:30 the plane will be touching down in New York. This was probably Varig's first non-stop flight from Rio to NYC. 

28 July 1964 - Ad at OESP in which Varig boasts of having 4 weekly flights to New York from Rio de Janeiro with stopovers in Recife-PE, Belém-PA & Santo Domingo (instead of Cuba which was ruled by Fidel Castro now). On top of 4 weekly flights to New York City, Varig had another 4 flights to other cities in the USA. Probably Los Angeles.

9 May 1965 - See this reel-to-reel Sony portable tape-recorder? This is the kind of stuff Brazilians bought in New York when they visited the city in 1965. New York World Fair was still on in May 1965. Victor International was now relocated at West 46th Street between 5th & 6th Avenues (Avenue of Americas). 

No man's land - New Jersey Meadowlands

I arrived in the USA, throught the JFK Airport in New York, on the morning of Saturday, 2nd October 1971. The very first time I took the Interstate bus to Newark at Platform 61, at the Port Authority Bus Terminal on 8th Avenue - and it went West through the New Jersey Turnpike... I noticed this No Man's Land spread out in a sort of eerie prairie beetween Manhattan  and Jersey City. 

Every time the bus flew over it on tall bridges that covered the swampland for kilometres I could not help but wonder about such a mysterious place...

New Jersey Meadowlands land fill.

New Jersey Turnpike on flooded Meadowlands.

Newark Bay Bridge - North Bayone Park.

Pulaski Skyway.

Blue Moon day seen from New Jersey - 31st July 2015.

Blue Moon day - 31st July 2015.

sometime before 11 September 2001. 

Every time I took the Newark bus at plataform 61, at the Port Authority Bus Terminal, on 8th Avenue, I actually prepared myself for a Magical Mystery Tour of my own. As soon as the bus finished crossing the Lincoln Tunnel and entered the amazing New Jersey Turnpike, especially after dark, my mind had a will of its own and flew away in space and time. The Turnpike was a real highway... I mean, it was built many metres above the ground...it was almost like riding an airplane...one could never see the ground which is the famous N.J. Meadowlands pictured above.

One of the most common recurring fantasies I had while I looked back at Manhattan's skyline getting ever so smaller in the distance was the thought that my Grandfather Giovanni Darin who migrated to Brazil in 1888, when he was 17 years old, had once wished to have migrated to the USA, which they called it America in his native Italy in the 1870s... a hundred years back. 

I had this strange pleasant feeling that just by being in 'America' and looking at the Empire State Building in the distance I had it made; I had made my Grandfather's dream come true a hundred years later! Isn't it peculiar? Actually my Grandfather was born on 11 November 1871, which would have made him just a baby if we were to turn back 100 years into the past. It was a feeling that made me feel good. The dream lasted for a few minutes until the bus swerved to the left and entered Newark's area which made me wake up to reality instantly. 

Returning to Newark from Manhattan after dark - usually on Saturdays or Sundays - made me a little uneasy for it was almost impossible to see people walking on the streets for Americans are notorious for not walking when they can drive. So after I got off the bus in the Ironbound, I walked murky and deserted streets until I got to where I lived. I wasn't afraid of being robbed or assaulted but only despondent for being so lonely. Fortunately all this gloom would disappear as soon as I got home - whatever 'home' meant at the time. Once I turned the radio on or got myself something to read or a letter to write I was back being my old self again. 

Pulaski Skyway with Kearny Generating Station on the right, in the 1970s.

Allan Lacki wrote at Facebook in 2026: the great and wonderful smog in the Jersey Meadows! I remember when there were no garbage mountains there - the "sanitation" companies simply burned the garbage in the open air and smoke filled the streets on the eastern side of Kearny, NJ most nights.

Mike Jamison wrote: This place scared me, as a child.

Maryanne Christiano-Mistretta replied:  I drove over it alone a few years ago. I was terrified. I don't know how people do it every day. I guess they are used to it.

Bob Maxim wrote: Thats how us, Polacks, get to heaven!