Joe Maselli, champion of N.O.'s Italian life, dies at age 85 Times Picayune October 20, 2009 ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://usgwarchives.net/la/lafiles.htm ************************************************ Joe Maselli, an ebullient businessman and activist who missed no opportunity to celebrate Italian culture and highlight its gifts to New Orleans, died Sunday after a brief hospitalization at Ochsner Foundation Hospital, his family said. He was 85. joseph-maselli.JPGJoe Maselli For most of three decades Mr. Maselli, usually carrying an unlit cigar, seemed to be the gregarious story-teller at or near the center of every Italian festival, museum, cultural exhibit and memorial event in New Orleans. He was a driving force behind the construction of the Piazza d'Italia in the Central Business District and helped create the Italian Village at the 1984 World's Fair. With the 500th anniversary of Christopher Columbus' landfall in the Americas, it was Mr. Maselli who helped make sure New Orleanians could see visiting replicas of the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria at the Mississippi riverfront. And when the Arts and Entertainment Network wanted a narrator to explain the Italian immigrant experience in New Orleans, it secured Mr. Maselli to tell the story for its documentary. Mr. Maselli founded the American-Italian Renaissance Foundation, oversaw an American-Italian Sports Hall of Fame and, with others, was an occasional White House guest when presidents going back to Gerald Ford wanted to consult local leaders on matters of ethnic or cultural heritage, said his son, Joseph Maselli Jr. A huge sports fan, Mr. Maselli counted among friends former Los Angeles Dodgers manager Tony Lasorda and boxing manager Angelo Dundee, his son said. Mr. Maselli participated in the civic life of New Orleans as well, as a member of the New Orleans Aviation Board, the French Market Board, the state Board of Ethics and the Metropolitan Crime Commission. Although Mr. Maselli knew the Italian experience in New Orleans as well as anyone, and better than most, he grew up near Newark, N.J., and did not visit New Orleans until he was shipped here as a young GI during World War II. The son of immigrant parents, Mr. Maselli had grown up speaking Italian on the streets of Belleville, N.J., running with non-Italian kids who thought him not quite American, he said in 1985. In New Orleans, Mr. Maselli married Antoinette Cammarata, who would be his wife for 63 years, finished college at Tulane and launched a liquor store that grew into City Wholesale Liquor Co., a distributorship. The business flourished, so much so that by age 50 Mr. Maselli could devote himself to the public celebration of Italians' cultural contribution to America. It was a passion, he once told The Times Picayune , that grew directly out of the perceived snub of his membership application by Metairie Country Club 20 years earlier. "From that point on, he said this will never happen to anyone else, " said his son. Mr. Maselli's civic work included bridge-building to other ethnic groups. For that reason he was awarded the Weiss Award by the National Conference of Christians and Jews, and the Anti- Defamation League's Torch of Liberty Award. Besides his wife and his son, Mr. Maselli is survived by sons Frank and Michael; a daughter, Jan Maselli Mann; a brother, Dominick Maselli; and eight grandchildren. Visitation will be Friday at 9 a.m. at St. John the Baptist Catholic Church, 1139 Oretha Castle Haley Blvd., followed by Mass at noon. Interment will be in Lake Lawn Cemetery. Lakelawn Funeral Home is in charge of arrangements.