Monthly Archives: October 2021

…………MOMBO camp was out final stop…All three camps we stayed at, Abt, DumaTao and Mombo are owned by the same “concession”. There is a similar thread throughout the camps. The architecture, the building materials, the layout of the properties, the furnishings etc were all similar, but different and unique. Before DumaTao was built and opened this year Mombo was considered the gold standard, but IMHO as nice as Mombo was Duma far surpassed it. There is a great competition between camps! It keeps them on their toes…….MOMBO was named after a famous bull elephant.

………………………………Today, October 15th 2021 marks the 83rd Anniversary of my parents marriage

Once in a while, when I was a teenager living at home, my Mom and I would sit when we were alone, and she would bring out her many boxes of pictures. I loved hearing her stories about her life as a child and a single girl, and she loved telling me about her life. Her stories were something else. She even told me of a past boyfriend that she almost married! but she broke it off [lucky me!], however she still had two pictures of him……I guess our talks took place because she wanted one of her children to know who she was. These talks meant very much to me, and I know to her. I still have all of her pictures…..These pictures were all taken way before she married my Dad when she was 26, which in those days was already considered late. She said she was having too much fun to settle down!…………..The pictures above are at her wedding on October 15, 1938 at the “Half Moon Hotel”. She said there were 500 people at her wedding!!! She called it a “football” wedding, but I wasn’t sure what that meant?? She had two brides maids plus her matron of honor. The couple to the right of my mother are Nardi and Armond, who were my parents best friends, and were their matron of honor and best man. Nardi and Armond had been married the month before. My mother was her maid of honor. I always called them Aunt Nardi and Uncle Armond…..They wore silver metallic lame dresses. It could sound tacky, but in those days the dresses were made with real silver threads woven into silk satin….My mother said they were beautiful, and I’m sure they were…She worked at a very exclusive dress company in NYC, and they made all of the dresses…..Those BOUQUETS and that TRAIN!!….they couldn’t get any bigger or longer. I love the way my father and his best man wore white bow ties and his ushers had black, a small but impressive touch….In the bottom right photo, second row down from the dais, are seated my father’s sisters and their husbands…My mother’s father, my grand father Giovanni Rutigliano, walked my mother down the isle. He was 85 years old when I was born! He spoke zero English so we never shared a word other than hello grandpa and goodbye grandpa. He passed away at the age of 98 in his sleep. I remember him always sitting at the dining table with this black skinny misshapen cigars that he constantly smoked, and a glass of either wine or black Italian coffee…My father used to tease him all the time……My grandfather must have been something in his youth….he had NINE, or I should say, my grandmother had NINE children [she was 10 to 15 years younger than him]……My mother was somewhere in the middle….She had an older sister Marie, and three older brothers, Paul, Tom and Vito…She had two younger sisters Millie and Angie, and two younger brothers, Lou and the baby, Danny. My Aunt Millie lived to be 104, and she and her son, my cousin Mauro, would go to Atlantic City to gamble. She was well know at the casino, and got everything for FREE!!! She was a natural red head like my Mom except my Mom let it go silver while my aunt always dyed it RED…..Everyone called her “Millie Red”…..Can you imagine this 95 plus red head gambling at the casino! My Uncle Dan was the last of the family to survive, and he passed last Nov……My father’s father, Mauro, was no slouch either!!! He had 2 sons and 5 daughters. My father was the oldest than 4 daughters…then my Uncle Louie and lastly my Aunt Edith who is still with us at 90 something….My parents, who spoke Italian fluently, never taught us the language, because they wanted us to be “American”. There was a lot of prejudice towards immigrants, and my parents made sure we only spoke English without any accents. Later on my mother regretted not teaching us, and so did I. My oldest brother did learn the language and could understand more than he could speak it. We lived in the same house in Brooklyn my father’s father owned until I was three, so my brother was ten when we moved. He was always with my grandfather who only spoke Italian. Today he can still understand, but speaks very little. There really isn’t anyone left to even speak Italian with……kind of sad…..Years later my mother and father went on the 50th wedding anniversary to Hawaii. It was a gift my brother Mauro and I gave to them. My “Aunt Nardi” and my “Uncle Armond” went with them. What I didn’t know at the time was Aunt Nardi had terminal cancer, but was determined to make this trip, and my mother was so happy to have her come. She passed away five months after their return…..I don’t think my mother was ever the same after her BFF left her. They had been best friends since childhood and were always together….My mother didn’t even really want to leave Brooklyn because moving to Long Island, the country, was so far away from her best friend…..She was closer to Nardi than anyone else, but my father wanted to get out of the two bedroom apt that was really too small for the the family….The Half Moon Hotel was built on the Board Walk of Coney Island on May 5th 1927. It was built to compete with the resort hotels of Atlantic City. It was named after the explorer Henry Hudson’s ship….The “Half Moon” which was said to have originally landed near 29th Street in Manhattan…… The hotel was a majestic Spanish colonial style resort. At the time of its’ opening it was the only “sky scraper” around with its’ 16 floors. You could see it from miles away.  Coney Island was a very different place from what we know today with its’ beautiful beaches and open spaces. It was developed as a place for the rich to escape NYC……However, the depression and prohibition came just at the wrong time for the hotel.  It became infamous in the 40’s when a man named Abe Reles was murdered. He was an X Murder Inc.  member who became an informant. He had murdered many people himself, and was known as a career criminal sociopath with the name “KID TWIST”……That became the legacy of the Half Moon Hotel…..like something out of a movie!.. Today it is long forgotten except for criminal buffs who know the stories of the Half Moon Hotel and its’ gangster connection…………I asked my mother if she had a good time at her wedding? She said it was too big and too many people, and she couldn’t wait for it to be over! Knowing my mother I’m sure this was true, and I’m sure she didn’t know 80% of the people there!…..The next day they took a cruise ship to Florida….a big deal in those days…..Their new life together began, and it would last for 65 years!………They both passed away at the ages of 95 within two weeks of each other.

………………The infamous “Half Moon Hotel” where my parents got married in 1938, was built in 1927………Who would guess one of the most famous MAFIA HITS would take place there only three years later…….The Half Moon Hotel was built as a resort for the very rich to lure them away from Atlantic City. At the time it was built, there was nothing around the hotel and it could be seen from miles away because it was so tall….Prohibition and the depression hit the hotel hard, and they kept afloat by renting out the ball rooms for weddings and conventions…..At the time the hotel was considered very splendid and beautifully done…..An interesting part of its’ history is its’ connection to a to a famous murder…..Abe Reles, a notorious killer himself, was going to be a witness against Albert Anastasia, “The Lord High Executioner” as he was called…..Anastasia was the number one man in the “Murder Inc.” organization. This organization was comprised of Italian and Jewish gangsters and was the most powerful syndicate in NYC and the Bronx…..Reles was being guarded at THE HALF MOON HOTEL on the 6th floor. These five detectives were assigned to protect him from being knocked off. He was given immunity to testify. The night before the trial they found his dead body on a roof top below his 6th floor room. They also found sheets that were badly tied together, which the detectives said he used to try and escape. The question was…why would he want to escape their protection???? EVERYONE knew this was a lie, and suspected the detectives from the start…….It was later found out that these detectives were paid $50,000 to kill him. In those days that was a huge amount of money. The next day after his body was discovered the newspapers read……………….”THE CANARY COULD SING, BUT IT COULDN’T FLY”……..During WW11 the hotel was turned into a naval hospital, and became a series of medical facilities until it was torn down in 1995. My parents never mentioned the history of the Half Moon Hotel to any of us. I found out all of the juicy information doing my own research….You can google The Half Moon Hotel Past and Present for all of its’ very interesting stories………..History is so interesting!!! At the time of their marriage having their reception at the Half Moon Hotel was a big deal. Who was to know it would become infamous years later……..I always loved the name of the hotel……………”The Half Moon”…………..like something out of a Fitzgerald novel.