Growing Up Bank Street

January 25, 2021
Florio charms in her debut memoir about a life well-lived on Greenwich Village’s Bank Street. “America would be a far better country if it were more like the old Village,” she writes of the neighborhood, which was full of artists, activists, and celebrities, and which she’s called home since the 1950s. In a series of vignettes, Florio pays homage to her neighbors including activist Bella Abzug, who was famous for her fight for women’s rights, but known to Florio as the vulnerable woman who had a strained relationship with her father, and John Lennon, whom she accidentally poured water on while watering petunias on her fire escape (“John smiled up at me. ‘No worries,’ he said in a soft voice. ‘It’s OK.’ ”). She also recounts interactions with Sid Vicious, the Sex Pistols bass player and a “vague, skinny boy who mumbled proper greetings while his eyes wandered the sky,” and recounts her sorrow at his 1979 death. Florio’s most moving recollections are of cherished friends: the upstairs family who sheltered Florio from her argumentative parents; the poet John Kemmerer, whose work inspired her own; and Broadway dancer Billy Jewell, who shared stories of friends he lost during the 1970s and ’80s AIDS crisis. This sentimental memoir will uplift any reader, no matter where they may call home.

February 1, 2021
A native Greenwich Villager shares her intimate memories of Manhattan's bohemian paradise. Florio, a former TV producer, Wall Street executive, and opera singer, has spent the majority of her life as a resident of one of the nation's most eccentric and colorful communities. "My childhood neighbors," she writes, "were painters, social activists, writers, longshoremen, actors, postmen, musicians, trust-fund bohemians, and office workers. Some were born here; others came because our street let them live and think as they liked. I listened to debates on socialism, reincarnation, vegetarianism, and politics on stoops and in grocery stores." As "the offspring of free-spirited artists," the author has always been in tune with the vibrancy of her neighborhood. With rich detail and compassion, Florio takes us into her world, sharing many of the poignant memories of her life among "the neighbors who became my allies and surrogate family." Some of the more memorable anecdotes include the author's early visit to the Amato Opera on Bleeker Street, where she "toddled around a warm backstage world of Egyptian slaves, French courtesans, and Spanish gypsies"; and reminiscences of an eccentric babysitter, the "real-life aunt of the author Patrick Dennis, who wrote the best-selling novel Auntie Mame, which would spawn a Broadway play, a Hollywood movie, and a Broadway musical." Florio also shares stories of resident spies and "high-ranking Communists," the disco era, the frenzied media response to the death of Sid Vicious in 1979, and the humiliating moment when, watering her plants, she accidentally poured water on a passing couple, John Lennon and Yoko Ono. Most touching of all are the many warm (and sometimes heartbreaking) memories of her neighbors opening their homes and hearts to each other. Thanks to Florio, as the Village continues to face gentrification, like many neighborhoods across America, we will never forget Bank Street. A charming stroll down Memory Lane and a tribute to a vanishing culture.

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