The Final Chapter of this story will never be written.   Today, the family continues to grow and multiply at Fibonacci like proportions.   Hundreds of first, second and third cousins now populate the country – some with whom I very close, others I have never met.  Many have gone on to fame and fortune; others have lived more simple lives. 

Following in Captain Tripi’s footsteps, four more of Liborio’s descendents graduated US military academies – both from West Point and Annapolis.  His grandson, Ignatius, (Philip’s son), became a prominent endodontist, and president of the NY Dental Society.  Ignatius’ son, Philip, rose to president of several record labels.  Others are accountants, doctors, engineers and businessmen; carpenters, mathematicians, lithographers, and clothing manufactures like Liborio.

In the 1950s, following in my great grandfather’s footsteps, my dad too brought his family to Elmont from Brooklyn, which provided me with my own set of happy childhood memories.   He married a carpenter’s daughter from Brooklyn after the War, and moved out of the lower east side, while his parents Pete and Annie remained in the old neighborhood. 

I always enjoyed visiting my grandma “over the bridge”.  I remember her perching me up on the fourth floor fire escape so I could be mesmorized by the elevators moving and down the sides of the new housing projects being constructed across the street.  My grandfather eventually retired, sold his medallion for big bucks and moved to New Jersey.  Unfortunately was not able to fully enjoy his retirement and passed away a few years later – in 1962 at the age of 66.

On Long Island, my sister and I had family everywhere – which provided little chance to misbehave.  My uncle, Nat, who lived a block away, organized family reunions at a county park when I was a kid, but I was too young to appreciate why he did it.  Unfortunately, as time has passed, many of my uncles, aunts, and grandparents have passed on, and through this writing, I hope to preserve some of their memories.  They are missed.  

Gone too is Hamilton Street, and while Cherry Street still remains, the tenements in which Liborio and Ignazio and their families lived have disappeared.  In their place now rises Knickerbocker Village, a low-income housing project erected in 1934.  Across Market St. there is now a park, facing the river, a renaissance of sorts to its pre-tenement roots.  Elizabeth Street is still there, but is now part of Chinatown which has steadily encroached on Little Italy’s turf. What remains of the former Italian urban village is now a tourist attraction of restaurants and cafes on Mulberry Street.                                                                                                

St. Joachim’s Church, on Roosevelt Street, several blocks south of where Liborio lived on Cherry Street has also vanished.  Roosevelt Street and all its tenements were demolished, making way for housing projects in 1961. 

Even my uncle’s park is gone.  In August of 1976, I decided to take a ride to visit this park that everyone in family had always talked about; the one named in my great uncle’s honor.  As luck would have it, the year before, in 1975, the Army had taken over the base and was in need of extra parking space.  Tripi Park had been turned into Tripi parking lot with asphalt now taking the place of trees and azaleas!

While the landmarks of the past began to fade, we were fortunate that Sebastiana, Liborio’s first daughter, (and my grandmother affectionately called Annie), shared her life and memories, and her homemade pizza with us until she was 98 years old, passing away in September of 1995.  Shortly, thereafter, my grandfather’s brother, Phil who had assumed the mantle of family patriarch, passed away in April, 1998. He had been an enthusiastic supporter of my first attempt at writing this, and would have, no doubt, enjoyed reading this new version.

What has not gone are our roots and heritage, which we need to preserve.  Today there are Quartararo’s, Tripi’s, Lefavi’s, and Libassi’s spread across the United States.  The latter two families became so huge, in fact, some of their own brothers and sisters, unfortunately, lost touch with each other years ago.  I recently made contact with several Libassi’s while searching the Internet.  One, Jeff Labasi from Mystic, CN.  (turns out there are several variations on the spelling), is the great great grandson of Gus Libassi, Maria’s brother).  Another, Lucille from Staten Island, is the grand daughter of Calogero Libassi (another of Maria’s brothers).  

One day I received an email from a long lost Libassi cousin.  We had been discussing our genealogy and sharing information we had uncovered about a possible family connection.  The email contained an attachment with some documents that looked very familiar.  Somehow they had obtained a copy of one of the charts I had put together in my original report back in 1983 and was now sharing his information with the writer almost 20 years later!

The experiences told here through the eyes of my relatives, and embellished with the help of lots of new information not previously available, have taken me on a timeless journey.   I hope the reader has enjoyed coming along for the ride.   Perhaps some day, this book will inspire a new generation to write the next chapter.