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CHAPTER TWO
COMING TO AMERICA |
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SALVATORE “SAM” COSTA WAS THE FIRST member of his immediate family to immigrate from the small farm town of Santa Croce in the Ragusa region of Sicily to Hackensack in 1901. A good portion of the population of Santa Croce had already settled there by the time Sam arrived. The same families had resided in these small Italian villages for centuries. Thus, the majority of the populations were probably interrelated and so immigration became a family affair, or at least one of cousins.
Although the majority of Italian men who immigrated intended to earn money to send back home and later return, America was so appealing that by the 1930s thousands of wives had joined them. The Sicilian women usually followed their men to America, and may have found factory or temporary employment, but most were expected to stay home as housewives and mothers, once married, often helping out in family businesses. Girls lived with their parents until they married. At first, young immigrant men crowded in boarding houses throughout the New York region, many having to take unskilled work as described above. Boarding houses were extremely convenient for the men worked long hours and needed a cooked meal when they got off. In Hackensack, scores of young German, Austrian, and northern Italian women, and men, also were employed as skilled weavers in the silk mills located in Hackensack, Paterson, Jersey City, and other cities. An 1894 newspaper article noted a strike at the Hackensack Silk Mill, on May 22. The night before at a mass meeting of 100, mostly Italian strikers, the German weavers had been denounced for not going on the lines. At this time American silk mills were at the height of production, but were largely replaced during the 1930s and ’40s by rayon and nylon manufacturers. The continual population, housing, and factory growth in Hackensack provided varied, booming opportunities for all. Immigrants were happy to find families from their own towns who would make them feel less homesick. Prospects were bright for young, ambitious men like Sam Costa, at the turn of the twentieth century.
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When seventeen-year-old Sam got off the Ellis Island ferry in New Jersey in 1901, he had not just fallen off the proverbial “turnip truck.” Unlike other Italian young men, he already had experience, gained in his small Sicilian town. Like most, his family were farmers, but at a young age, Sam began to market other farmers’ produce for them to larger towns and in town. When he arrived in Hackensack, lacking money to buy farm land, Sam started plying his marketing skills. Although at first he held down two jobs, during the day caddying at the Hackensack golf course and at night shoveling coal at the Waterworks Company, soon he earned enough money to buy a horse and wagon and began to sell produce..
The day Sam bought his first supply of fruit and vegetables was a big one for him. On his first day out, he put half his money in his pocket, drove his wagon over the Hudson River into Manhattan, rumbled on to the markets, and bought his produce. At this time, however, Sam’s English was poor. After he crossed the Hudson on the way back home, he got lost and was unable to ask or understand directions. Hence, his produce perished under the broiling hot, mid-day sun. Undaunted, Sam finally arrived home, got his directions squared away, and drove his wagon into Manhattan again the next day, using the other half of his savings to buy a second load of fruit and vegetables. On this trip, he successfully made his way home and was able to sell his goods. He must have heaved a big sigh of relief. Over time, Sam did very well on his route, and within a few years he was able to rent a store with rooms in the back. Presently the Hackensack bakery is housed in this same building. From his horse and wagon days, Sam had built up a clientele who became his store customers. Neighborhood families also shopped at his market, although Costa did have a few competitors.
When Sam left Sicily, he had intentions to marry Rose Belluardo, also of Santa Croce. And so Rose arrived in America within two or three years and they were married at St. Francis Roman Catholic Church, located on the corner of Hudson and East Broadway in Hackensack. For sure, all their Santa Croce cousins attended. Rose worked in Sam’s store part-time and found the time and wherewithal to raise five children: one boy, Carmen, the oldest, born on July 13, 1913, and four girls, although, tragically, one died as a teenager. The children attended the State Street elementary school and Hackensack public high school. Carmen started working on the wagon, helping on the route, at age eight or nine; later when their store opened, at ages ten or eleven, the girls began work at the counter.
Clearly Sam had a natural talent for business. By the early 1930s, the Costas were successful enough to be able to buy two 2-story buildings on Hudson Street. One building became the family market where they, again, sold fruits and vegetables. In it, Sam immediately consolidated his costs and expanded his sources of revenue. He and his family lived on the floor above. He rented sections of the store to his cousin, Angelo Vasile, who ran a small butcher concession and to Irving Wigod who rented space where he sold dairy and canned goods. He also rented out the second building, located across the street that had a bar on the ground floor, adding to his income. So Sam’s expenses and income were housed under two roofs, which offset each other to a considerable degree.
As great-grandson, Russell Trocano, explains Sam’s success, coming from poor, often remote, country towns which had histories of conflict with each other, greedy plantation owners, brigandage, and foreign invasion, the main goal of most Italian families was first survival, then success. This meant: only family members were truly trusted and heavily relied upon; the male members were responsible for protecting the family; at first hard work was valued more than education; the main goal was to become independent by making money. Economic independence meant freedom for these newly arrived Sicilians. Says Trocano, “That’s what you were told to do: make money. When my father met a lawyer once, he asked him, ‘But are you making money?’” So whole families worked together in businesses that were passed down through generations and which afforded elders security in their old age. As a result Italian neighborhoods remained largely intact, long after other ethnic groups had moved out.
Strong alliances were cemented with those groups with whom the Italians had a shared history and culture: Germans into whose areas they moved and later Hispanics whom they hired, given the similarities of language and Mediterranean culture and shared religion. As a concrete example, at the turn of the twentieth century, Italian grocers were the first to sell bananas in urban areas for the importers and distributors were also Italians. Due to their linguistic ties, they quickly picked up the rudiments of Spanish and peddlers met the banana boats at New York docks which steamed in from Guatemala and Costa Rica. As Russell notes, however, when unpacking, workers had to beware of black widow spiders. Following in this tradition, to this day, New York City government purchases a significant portion of Guatemala’s banana crop for its school lunch program.
In a certain way, every Italian family business became a small fiefdom, headed by the eldest male. This did not mean, however, that the women had no say. In Sicily, they signed parental consents for children to immigrate; and they invested money husbands sent home. In America, they raised large families and worked in the family business as time permitted. Extended networks of aunts, uncles, and cousins socialized and were expected to help each other out when troubles came. Italian mothers were known for their personal warmth and good cooking. Coming from a different ethnic group, Edna Costa, Sam’s daughter-in-law, about whom we shall read more later, had to learn Italian cooking from her brother-in-law’s mother. Italian mothers might serve turkey on Thanksgiving and Christmas, but they also might have been up all night making lasagna.
Because a certain “us-against-the-world” mentality existed in these first generations, every family member was expected to work in the business from a young age. The produce business is a tough one, since perishable goods are bought and sold, with small margins of profit. One had to quickly perceive where and how sales could best be made and sometimes make quick decisions. Competitors had to be beaten out. You had to be sure you got to the wholesale markets early, before the best produce was picked over. You came to know your customers and suppliers. If necessary long distance truckers would drive thousands of miles in one stretch to get goods to the market quickly. You had to know on which firms you could rely.
So over the years, Sam, Rose, and family learned the lay of the produce business in the New York City region. Fruit and vegetables came from a variety of markets: the Paterson markets then located near Railway Avenue; at what is now the Manhattan 125th Street beef market; the Bronx Terminal; the Hunts Point Market in the southeast Bronx. There Sam could purchase at volume discounts. The Costas made connections with buyers in Florida and had railroad carloads of fruit shipped to Hackensack, in, say, three days. If Sam bought fifteen loads of oranges, he could corner the local market for the week and be able to sell virtually the whole stock. Chickens could be purchased in Hackensack, but family members traveled as far south as Maryland to haggle with farmers over the prices of chickens and eggs. Bergen County farmers grew celery and lettuce. The old Dutch farmers--the Wyckoffs and Van Ripers--still had their apple orchards, which existed into the 1990s. But normally Sam did not buy from them, for he would have had to make a commitment to purchase an estimated amount at harvest time, which he could not predict. It was better to comb the produce markets in the cities, also to get the cheapest prices.
Then there was the business of learning the tricks of the trade. To keep items fresh, in the days before refrigeration, the Costa men stocked their trucks and wagons with large ice blocks. They watched over their shelves and saw what sold well, how fast, and in what quantities. During the summer when fruit was in season, they shipped it in under-ripe and sold it as fresh as they could; during the later months, or as it began to over ripen, these items might be sold in crates or bushels, at cheaper prices, for canning for the winter. The Costas only varied from produce when they stocked Christmas trees, wreaths, and decorations during the holidays. They kept open bins of fruit and vegetables on the sidewalk, like in Italy, thus avoiding needless packaging and storage costs. Awnings could protect produce from the heat of the sun, and fast ripening, in the summer. Their Italian neighbors also wanted to pick and choose individual tomatoes, potatoes, melons, peaches, and other items they were buying. The produce didn’t need to be perfect; bad parts can be cut away. Each family had a lot of mouths to feed and every penny and purchase counted. This Italian custom of having open street bins today persists in Manhattan and all over the New York-New Jersey region, in all neighborhoods, and has been adopted by the Koreans, New York City’s current small grocers.
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Transition summary to Chapter Four:
By the 1930s, Sam was well on his way to becoming one of the richest men in the first ward in Hackensack. Although the hours were long and demands great, his grocery business was very successful and he invested in real estate, as well. Son Carmen followed in his father’s footsteps and took over Sam’s grocery accounts after he retired in 1946. Two years later Carmen bought and opened a store on Main Street in downtown Hackensack. By 1960, however, Hackensack had changed. Carmen could no longer rely on his ethnic Italian base and many families had moved to the suburbs and were no longer shopping in the town center.
During the Christmas seasons, Carmen had sold trees and greens at his grocery mart and had always had an interest in horticulture, being an avid reader of the American Nurseryman magazine. So in 1961, Carmen switched from the grocery to the wholesale nursery business, finally buying property in Maywood, two miles west of Hackensack in 1963.
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CHAPTER FOUR
THE GREENING OF BERGEN COUNTY
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. . . . Maine Evergreen wholesale nursery began for the same reasons those in the early nineteenth century had: owners catered to an increasing urban population where a building boom was occurring and it was too expensive for contractors, landscapers, and garden centers to buy directly from growers who could be located anywhere in the country. In the mammoth post-World War II construction spate, more farms and estates in northern New Jersey were turned into housing developments; shopping centers; government office and business complexes; and county, state, and federal highways, all of which needed landscaping.
As in any enterprise, when he entered the nursery business, Carmen first had to learn it, by trial, error, and experience. One has to know one’s customers. One has to decide into what part of the market one’s product is going to fit: should you try to suit the general buyer, or focus, in whole or part, on a segment and fill the needs of niche buyers. These decisions can be tricky. If one tries to attract the general customer, one could have lots of competition. But if one tries to succeed only by filling the needs of niche buyers, would there be enough of them to allow one to make a profit?
Other questions arise. Fundamentally, regardless of the market segment, one must ask, what are customers looking for: what types of trees and shrubbery just look good; what is popular; what types of greens and flowers do they want for their gardens vs. their driveways and walks; which ones suit the soil of the area; to what kinds of diseases are different plants prone; what pests do they attract and how difficult are they to get rid of; how much maintenance do they need; does the average resident want to spend time working in his or her garden and really learn about plants? As an example of the above, hydrangeas are perfectly attractive bushes that bloom pretty pink and blue flowers. But if there is not enough acid in the soil, the flowers turn white, which gives them a slightly weedy appearance. As another, one type of evergreen shrub is “taxus.” In years past, they have been quite popular, but currently customers want other kinds, largely because the local deer eat them, thanks to the recent explosion of the deer population in New Jersey. Needless to say, this information curve was filled in over time for Carmen by the landscapers and greenhouse owners who were hearing directly from their retail customers. Sometimes, what was bought depended upon whether residents had paid caretakers. So in order to get sales, one had to understand the needs of the buyers who were the professionals. Over time, Carmen got answers to all these questions.
Carmen started with the basics to sell to florists, garden centers, landscapers, and cemeteries. He purchased Christmas trees, in multi-tree bundles from Nova Scotia, as well as plantation and natural trees sourced from Maine, Quebec, and New Brunswick. In addition, Maine Evergreen carried a full line of Christmas greens, including wreaths, roping, brush, and grave blankets. Smaller items comprised florist wire and picks, pine cones, plastic decorations, and ribbon to go on them.
As to a market, in Maywood residents bought within a fairly small range of: shrubbery, flowering and deciduous trees, fruit trees, and flowering bushes. So Costa aimed for standard items, selling quality: evergreen shrubs, junipers, yews, boxwood, ilex, taxus, barberry, and holly trees; linden and magnolia flowering trees; maples and ash for colored leaves; rhododendron, forsythia, lilac, azalea, and hydrangea flowering bushes; apple, pear, and cherry fruit trees and later ornamental fruit trees that bloomed, but did not fruit; in July and August, cacti were on the market. Exotic species such as Japanese maples or Ginko trees might eventually be sold, but only after they had become common.
For every new shrubbery item sold, the Costas had to learn about it. As an example, for their government buyers, they learned that sycamore and London plane trees survive New York City smog well. Maine Evergreen has sold thousands of trees and plants to the New York City Parks Department. Fortunately, Carmen’s wife, Edna, worked as the firm’s bookkeeper and payroll administrator. She was also a good gardener. Often when a customer would ask what to buy or how to plant an item, Carmen would refer him to Edna who would take time to discuss plans with landscapers and contractors.
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