Paterno in 1908

Charles Vincent Paterno (born Canio Paternò, August 4, 1878 – May 30, 1946) was an Italian-born American real estate developer. He was called the "Napoleon of the Manhattan Skyscraper Builders".[1]

Life and career

Born in Castelmezzano, in the Italian region of Basilicata, to Giovanni Paternò, a real estate businessman, and Carolina Trivigno, Paterno emigrated to the United States due to financial problems caused by an earthquake which destroyed a construction project that his father was involved with. He graduated from Cornell Medical School in 1899, with the intention of becoming a doctor of medicine[2] but he never practiced the profession.[3] After his father's death, Paterno and his brother Joseph took over the family real estate business.[4][5] By 1918, the Paternos owned 75 buildings housing about 28,000 people.[6]

The Paterno name is connected to the construction and the development of a number of modern, luxurious apartment buildings in the Upper East Side, Morningside Heights, and Washington Heights neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City, including:

Paterno died at the Westchester Country Club in Harrison, New York, on May 30, 1946.[3] He is memorialized by the Paterno Trivium at the intersection of Cabrini Boulevard, West 187th Street, and Pinehurst Avenue in the Hudson Heights subsection of Washington Heights.[8]

Paterno Castle

Hand-colored postcard of the Paterno Castle, ca. 1920)

The Paterno Castle, was an early 20th century Neo-Gothic four-story 35-room castle shaped mansion located in New York City, where Charles Paterno lived, in what is now a apartment complex.

The completed castle survived barely two decades. Paterno later moved from the castle to Greenwich, Connecticut,[9] and in 1938 he decided to demolish the castle and most of the surrounding estate to erect the "Castle Village" complex of co-operative apartments.[10] The area was becoming increasingly residential, and The New York Times quoted Paterno as saying that "the many improvements in that part of the city...had led to a strong residential movement in that area with a definite demand for the finer type of garden type apartments."[4]

Some remnants of the estate can still be seen to this day.

References

Notes

  1. ↑ Italian Americana, Volume 8, 1986, p.10
  2. ↑ Cornell University staff (1900). "Thirty-First Annual Commencement: Doctors of Medicine". The Register of Cornell University. Ithaca, New York: Andrus & Church. p. 435.
  3. 1 2 Staff (May 31, 1946). "Charles V. Paterno (obituary)". The Brooklyn Daily Eagle. p. 11. Retrieved January 9, 2016.
  4. 1 2 Miller, Tom (July 16, 2012) "The Lost 1909 Paterno Castle – 185th Street and Riverside Drive" Daytonian in Manhattan
  5. ↑ "Joseph Paterno ; Dr. Charles Paterno". NYPL Digital Collections. Retrieved 2020-11-21.
  6. ↑ Walsh, Kevin (December 22, 2000) "Postcards from the Edge of Town" Forgotten NY
  7. ↑ Gray, Christopher (August 15, 1999). "The Colosseum and the Paterno, 116th Street and Riverside Drive; At Curves in the Road, 2 Unusually Shaped Buildings". The New York Times. Retrieved 2008-02-07.
  8. ↑ Paterno Trivium, New York City Parks and Recreation Department
  9. ↑ Staff (January 22, 2010) "Patrno's Castle" My Inwood
  10. ↑ "Demolishing A Castle In New York 1938" (video) British Pathé

Further reading

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