A family-run market that has been a fixture in the Italian American community in Springfield, Massachusetts for nearly a century is about to close. The tiny market would be in the shadow of the resort casino that MGM is about to build.
There will be no lines out the door and down the block of people waiting this summer to buy the Italian lemon ice –made from a secret family recipe. Tiny Albano’s market on East Columbus Ave. in Springfield’s South End neighborhood is closing after 73 years in business.
Since word of the closing of the grocery store got out a couple of weeks ago people have been coming in to share fond memories and to say their goodbyes to the two sisters who operated the market and were known in the neighborhood for helping people in need.
Judy Hourihan remembers coming to Albano’s years ago to buy the lemon ice served in a paper cup with a wooden spoon for 10 cents.
" It is reflective of a very good time when life was simpler and there were simple pleasures," she said.
Evidence of the generosity that was spread throughout the neighborhood from the tiny store can be found on a wallboard at the end of the counter where dozens of cash register receipts are pinned. Each is an IOU –some from people likely long dead—that the store’s owners never tried to collect.
Theresa D’Angelantonio, who did her school homework in the backroom of the store while her parents worked the front counter, said when her father died she and her sister, Filomena Bruschi, thought they would keep the market open for just one more year. That was 20 years ago.
" We stayed here and now it is time to go, " said D'Angelantonio.
After two decades of operating the market, which did a brisk business with lunchtime sandwiches, the sisters agreed it was time to retire and they accepted an offer from a group of investors to buy their property.
"It is very emotional. Hopefully everything will work out fine. Nothing lasts forever," said D'Angelantonio.
Albano’s is one of the last small family-owned businesses in a once tight knit neighborhood. Rev. Anthony Corigliano of Our Lady of Mount Carmel parish said after I-91 was built through the South End in the 1960s the neighborhood started to change.
" People moved out and all the different markets that were here are gone," he said.
The highway also brought large scale development. The Basketball Hall of Fame, with its complex of restaurants and bars, is just on the other side of the highway from Albano’s. Now a casino will be built just a few blocks away.
Springfield Mayor Domenic Sarno, who first came to Albano’s when he was 5 years old, recently presented Bruschi and D’Angelantonio with the Key to The City and a proclamation honoring them as pillars of the Italian-American community.
Bruschi said all the attention paid to the small market’s closing is overwhelming.
" I spoke to Domenic and said we want to leave very quietly, but I guess we are not going to leave quietly," said Bruschi with a laugh as wellwishers filled the tiny store.
