nothin DeLauro Family Table Unveiled | New Haven Independent

DeLauro Family Table Unveiled

Allan Appel Photo

First sitters at DeLauro Family Table: Kathy DeStefano, Nicholas Miller, and Ginger Miller.

Kathy DeStefano ordered a symbolic cappuccino, Ginger Miller a cannoli, and nine-year-old Nicholas Miller described the seat as cold and good” as these three became the first officially to sit down at the DeLauro Family Table.

The controversial granite sculptural tribute to the DeLauro heritage and the spirit of family were unveiled Sunday afternoon.

There was not a protester in evidence among a crowd of 150 people shouting bravos and bravas and waving American flags in Wooster Square Park.

Click here and here for previous stories of how the privately funded sculpture, an idea of Mayor John DeStefano, aroused the ire of a group of Wooster Square neighbors who charged the project was not vetted widely enough by the community.

The sculpture honors former Alderwoman Luisa DeLauro; her late husband Ted, a neighborhood organizer; and their daughter, U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro

Rosa and Luisa DeLauro, Stan Greenberg.

At Sunday’s event there was all love, Italian warmth, and no controversy.

Local Italian-American historian Anthony Riccio, who wrote the program for the event, said of Rosa DeLauro: Compassion, caring for the elderly, she brings forth the best the Italian community offers. She’s the anti-Sopranos.”

The mayor opened his remarks by quoting from Riccio’s text: The DeLauro family table became a makeshift social service center where neighbors often dropped in unannounced and sat with Ted and Luisa to discuss problems with Social Security, Medicare, housing, immigration rights, citizenship applications, and employment.

As mayor I proudly accept this table in this place, the right place and right park.”

The sculptural ensemble was draped in a flowing crimson drape and surrounded by pink, red, and yellow chrysanthemums atop several hay bales, as speakers like Valley Community Foundation President Jamie Cohen hit variations on this theme: We’re here to honor Wooster Square’s soul: The DeLauro Family. My mother calls you her soldier. You are fighting in Washington D.C. for the values important to us.”

When Luisa DeLauro’s name was mentioned, brava“s emerged from among the American flags. Luisa DeLauro, who turns 98 this Christmas eve, waved to the assembled admirers.

When it was the Congresswoman’s turn to speak, she did so with a trembling of emotion in her voice: Thanks not for me [alone] but for my mother and father, whose shoulders I stand on.”

DeLauro reviewed emotional highlights of her family’s history, including how her father dropped out of school yet sent his children through college; how he surrounded Rosa with opera and took her to hear Aida at the Met at age 9. Only Joe DiMaggio was a greater passion,” DeLauro said of her father.

Those who enjoy this beautiful park,” she said. Remember the immigrant activists who made this possible.”

Then she called the table and chair sculptural group, designed by local architect Barry Svigals, timeless.”

Anthony RIccio provided some perspective on the current contretemps over the sculpture: In 1891, Italian-American societies raised the money and proposed the statue of Columbus that now stands in Wooster Square. The city fathers reacted by suggesting: OK, if you must, but put it in East Rock where nobody can see it.

The societies stuck by their guns, saying they had just as much stake in America as anyone else.

The borders of the table and the backing of the chairs contain quotations from the DeLauros. The sculpture’s designer Barry Svigals said you can enter the text running around the border of the table at any point.

At the southwestern corner text taken from an article Luisa DeLauro wrote for a 1933 Democratic Party newsletter begins: We are not living in the Middle Ages when a woman’s position was merely to serve a master in a home.”

Svigals said that the next line, which Rosa DeLauro quoted in the ceremony, was unfortunately dropped from the table: Come on, girls: Let’s make ourselves heard.”

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