Page 6 THE MALDEN ADVOCATE–Friday, July 2, 2021 Malden Today, Tomorrow and Yesterday – remembering Joe & Nemo’s By Peter F. Levine I f you remember Joe & Nemo’s hole-in-the-wall hot dog joint on Main Street across the street from the First Baptist, at the Crossroads of Malden (Ferry, Salem, Main), then you are a Malden old-timer. But the purpose of this piece isn’t to gloat about our old-time Malden bona fides but to give life back to the memory of the best darned hot dog you ever had. Joe & Nemo’s steamed heavenly treats! Let’s start with a little J&N history. J&N started their hot dog legacy in 1909 on the outskirts of the old West End near Scollay Square on Cambridge Street. Joe Merlino and Anthony (Nemo) Caloggero were barbers who decided one day to purchase a bakery not too far away. They soon discovered that they were not very good bakers – instead deciding to pursue the side business of selling hot dogs. A dynasty was born. They developed a formula of just the right proportion of beef and pork, specially ground with a carefully developed combination of seasonings, according to what I have learned. The formula was a tightly kept secret much like the Highland Café pizza recipe that Dave Angelo guards with his very life. The rolls were delivered twice a day hot and uncut from a bakery in Chelsea. In 1925 they expanded the menu (slightly) and the space they occupied. They killed it! Staying open (almost) 24 hours a day, seven days a week, closing for a two-hour period each morning to clean and restock. In the 1950s “Institutions Magazine” found in a study of restaurant businesses that J&N ranked 321st in the country for revenue, outpacing local institutions like Locke-Ober, Durgin-Park and Jimmy’s Harborside. Selling hot dogs! They were the best! The J&N saga continues... when developer/villain to generations of West Enders Jerome Rappaport, with a little Ten-year-old Pam Picillo, her dad Mike and mother “Lal” inside Joe & Nemo’s in the mid-1960s; notice the beautiful J&N sign partially visible hanging in the background above Mike’s head. (Courtesy Photo) help from a few “shortsighted, pig-headed politicians” in power at the time, decided to raze the West End in the name of urban renewal, J&N fell victim. Charles River Park and the new Government Center were born, but millions of dreams were needlessly buried under the rubble of those old tenement streets of the West End. But I digress. At that point J&N had expanded their operation and franchised. From my own memory bank, I can remember the last three J&N’s in the area: At the base of Beacon Hill off Cambridge Street (not the original), North Station across from the “Gahden” and the one located right here in our hometown of Malden. Fast forward to 1971 and my first memory of J&N in Malden Square: I’m 13 and I spend most of my waking hours at Devir Park. When we’re not playing baseball on Bruce Field, we’re playing softball on the diamond closest to the Dalton’s Shell Gas Station on the Fells. Or we’re playing pickup hoops on one of the two basketball courts at the time. Or we’re tackling each other, imitating “Mean Joe” Greene and the rest of the “Steel Curtain” defense from the Pittsburgh Steelers. Or we’re chilling on the Bandstand with a Big A sub and Everett Aluminum 10 Everett Ave., Everett 617-389-3839 Owned & operated by the Conti family since 1958 • 57 Years! “Same name, phone number & address for family since 1958 • 63 over half a century. We must be doing something right!” •Vinyl Siding •Free Estimates •Carpentry Work •Fully Licensed •Decks •Roofing • Fully Insured • Replacement Windows www.everettaluminum.com Now’s the time to schedule those home improvement projects you’ve been dreaming about all winter! cold coke. Anyway, Bert Cioffi’s big brother Cliff is our Park Instructor this summer. He introduces us to the Amerige Park way of life – Devir and Amerige to be forever linked by this one man with more charisma than should be allowed – the guy we affectionately called “Choff.” The girls just adored him and all the guys wanted to be like him. So, I become Cliff’s right hand. He takes me under his wing and instills in me something he lived his whole life by: “keep shooting, you’re bound to get hot.” It’s a hot summer morning (is it just me or were the summers hotter back when we were kids?). I volunteer to help Cliff move something around at his childhood home on Pine Street. (He still lives there, by the way, and he is still moving stuff around.) My reward: Choff’s gonna purchase for me my first “gray t-shirt” at Lee Chisholm’s (Sporting Goods) on Exchange Street and treat me to hot dogs at Joe & Nemo’s in the Square. Best day evah! Choff loads me up with three steamed dogs and a coke. Total cost, 95 cents! The hot dogs were the best I ever had – till this very day. I became a regular throughout high school. Then one day, they were gone. Fast forward many years, I started dating the love of my life (eventually to become my wife), Pam Picillo. Come to find out her uncle Henry (Picillo) owned and operated Malden Square’s J&N until its untimely demise and departure from the Square. Pam’s father, Mike, had two sisters and a brother. Well, I’ll let Pam’s cousin, Jimmy “2 Suits” Capone (horn MALDEN: TODAY| SEE PAGE 15 Summer is Here!
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