SCHENECTADY Little Italy gets a hair salon, keeps hopes for vital growth BY MICHAEL LAMENDOLA Gazette Reporter
Little Italy has gotten a little bigger. Kristin Catrambone, 37, opened a hair salon at 36 North Jay St. in November, the first new business in the specialty district since 2003. She held a grand opening Thursday for Kristin’s Salone Di Capelli — Italian for hair salon. Catrambone had operated her salon, formerly Kristin’s Hair Salon, on Nott Street for eight years. She has been a hairstylist for 18 years. “I moved my salon and expanded,” Catrambone said. The salon offers full-service styling, color and waxing. Catrambone jumped at a chance to relocate to North Jay, a neighborhood long associated with her family. Her great-uncle, Henry Aceto, and then her great-grandparents, Marianna and Alfredo Farone, ran Farone’s market at 51 North Jay St., starting in the 1920s. Catrambone’s grandfather, Alfred, helped around the store, and her mother, Mariann [Farone] Gold, used to sit on the store’s stoop. When Marianna died in 1959, Farone’s closed. It became an apartment building and was later torn down. Cornell’s Restaurant now occupies the site. Cornell’s, which offers Italian food, moved to North Jay Street in 2003 and was to serve as the centerpiece for a newly created Little Italy neighborhood. The neighborhood was to include bakeries, restaurants and possibly a tailor and a shoemaker. The Sons of Italy would add soccer fields and a bocce ball court. It was part of a $2.8 million plan to preserve and expand upon the neighborhood’s ethnic roots. The concept never took off. Little Italy today includes Cornell’s, Perreca’s Bakery and Civitello’s Spumoni Shop, businesses that started there decades ago. And now Salone Di Capelli. Catrambone has high hopes for Little Italy and expects to help the neighborhood reach its potential. “I absolutely love what is going on downtown and I am hopeful,” she said. She leases space in a building, the former Joe’s Barbershop, that had been vacant for years. Catrambone said she is already helping recharge the neighborhood. “I am established and I brought my clientele with me,” she said. Her clientele comes from throughout the Capital Region, and many of them are making their fi rst visit to Little Italy, she said. “People come to get their hair done. They sit in the chair and say they are going to get bread at Perreca’s or go next door to Civitello’s,” she said. “Things are going fantastic. I want to keep doing what I am doing and go from there.” Lila Perreca, 83, said she is happy to see a new business open in the neighborhood. “There is nothing really here. We have to................http://www.dailygazette.net/De.....amp;EntityId=Ar01000
I'm sure she will do well, as long as the economy improves, but I don't see how it will improve the existing businesses. I mean she was already on Jay St. which is not all that far from the 'ITALIAN DISTRICT'. The gazette mentions how traffic will increase once the Golub office complex is done. And the Golub office complex is even farther than Jay Street is to the 'ITALIAN DISTRICT'.
“Democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.” Thomas Jefferson
Millions of taxpayer dollars have been dumped down this toilet. On curbs. lighting and those stuna pillars. No mention of Dinky Dogs that closed months ago? How about The Joint II? There are dozens of vacant properties over there. Sons was smart and moved to Rotterdam.
This was supposed to be a catalyst for "renaissance" according to horrible Death Ray. Usual honesty and accuracy. Here's what will start a real County "renaissance"; close all City library branches, end Metrograft, end DSIC, fire 10% of DSS employees and give the entire County a 20% property tax cut. Then you will see businesses return to the City. Not before. Wish her well but get real-one job has been created? Stop the presses!
Maria Perreca Papa's proposed new restaurant to be located next to the famed Perreca's Bakery moved a step closer to reality last week when the Schenectady City Council authorized a new overhead sign and handicap accessible ramp.Originally it was hoped the project at 31-33 North Jay St. in Little Italy would be completed by mid-September. Bakery employees last weekend said a need for more extensive than expected construction will delay the opening until mid-October.
The council approved a 10-foot red neon sign carrying the message, "More Perrecas –Breakfast, Lunch, Coal Fired Pizza.''
The new café will be located in a long-rundown vacant building that many years ago was the home of Ferrucci's Pastry Shop. Upper floors are being renovated to again serve as apartments.
Perreca family members have been running the bakery since 1914.
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Millions of taxpayer dollars have been dumped down this toilet. On curbs. lighting and those stuna pillars. No mention of Dinky Dogs that closed months ago? How about The Joint II? There are dozens of vacant properties over there. Sons was smart and moved to Rotterdam.
