Italian Workmen’s Club 100th anniversary will celebrate heritage with food, dance and a play [The Wisconsin State Journal]

Nov. 28--A simple brick building on Regent Street is pretty much all that remains of the Greenbush immigrant neighborhood, which was razed during the 1960s in the name of urban renewal.

The building is the Italian Workmen's Club, built in 1922 by volunteers on donated land with donated materials. The mutual benefit society itself had been meeting for a decade by then. A century later, it remains the heart of a vanished neighborhood. The club's 100th anniversary will be marked with fanfare on Jan. 21.

"We wanted to do something more than eat and go home," said Tony Bruno, who was born and raised in the "Bush" and is among those planning the celebration. There will be an interactive play co-written by Tony's brother Michael Bruno, who worked in Los Angeles as a writer for television game shows and theatrical comedies, and is best known here for his performances as Joe Cannoli in the Sweet Cannoli Nuptials.

Although there are funny moments in the play, it's not a comedy. The many troubles that hit the triangular enclave bounded by West Washington Avenue, Park and Regent streets couldn't be ignored. The Bruno brothers' grandfather was gunned down in front of their father, supposedly under the direction of Al Capone.

The play goes back and forth in time, focusing on three periods. The first is 1912, when an Italian from Chicago persuaded an Italian from Madison of the importance of establishing a mutual support club for their kinsmen.

But it wasn't that simple. The first "Italians" were actually three feuding groups who spoke different languages: those from Italy's mainland, ethnic Sicilians and Albanians who came to Sicily as mercenaries centuries ago, and weren't yet forgiven for that by ethnic Sicilians. "The question was, "How are we gonna please everyone with this club?" said Michael Bruno.

All the groups had informal gatherings in backyards, basements and taverns. But the Italian Workmen's Club was the only one with a building, rules and regular meetings. And it's where the first records for the mostly undocumented workers were kept.

"There was no health insurance so if you were in the hospital other members would chip in a nickel or dime," said Tony Bruno, who will portray the club's founder in the play. "We kept to ourselves."

At that time, there were signs posted on buildings saying "We don't hire Italians." The Bush was nicknamed Spaghetti Corners, a self-contained community with a butcher, dry goods store, a bakery and barrels of wine fermenting in every basement.

The second era in the play is Prohibition, when bootlegging meant survival for many in the neighborhood. The central character is Jennie Justo, the young "Queen of the Bootleggers" who spent a short time in jail. When she was released, the frat boys she'd served greeted her with flowers and a serenade at the train station.

"All the characters in the first two time periods are based on real people," Michael Bruno said.

The third time period is the 1960s, when urban renewal began. The two characters featured in this era are fictional: a grandmother who'd lived through it all and a non-Italian bride who came to her to learn how to cook for her Italian husband.

"That's exactly what happened to my wife and a lot of our wives," said Frank Alfano, who is also planning the anniversary.

When the old woman dozes, her mind drifts back to the days of grape arbors in backyards, simmering pots of red sauce, close-knit families, contempt directed at Italians from outsiders and dirty cops.

"It's a 90-minute play, but there was enough material for a nine-hour play," Michael Bruno said.

The event that still burns in the neighborhood's collective memory was the demolition of St. Joseph's church and school.

"They were the first things to go down and people were livid," Michael Bruno said. "There are only four buildings, including the Workmen's Club, that survived the ethnic cleansing. Wherever else I've lived there are old Little Italys, and I think about what was lost here."

But any lingering bitterness will be tempered by the mentions of Italian cooking laced throughout the script. And there will be rousing traditional songs, including the Italian national anthem, sung in Italian and accompanied by accordion and concertina. Few in the audience will remember them, but all will be given lyric sheets and are expected to sing along.

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(c)2011 The Wisconsin State Journal (Madison, Wis.)

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