Longtime restaurant owner Patrick Mendoza and his neighbor Rocco Giovanello may not be famous names, but in Boston’s transforming North End, their decades-long bloody feud, which has come to a head outside of Modern Pastry, is the stuff of legend. A legend of molto dolce.
A little before 11 p.m. on a hot summer night on Hanover Street, everything in the North End was business as usual. Old-school locals talked in an animated huddle on the sidewalk, pausing in unison to watch a new-school neighbor passing by wearing a Connecticut-tight ponytail and dressed in head-to-toe Lululemon. The owner of Dolce Vita Ristorante serenaded the last patrons out of his eatery. And a line of people seeking arguably the nation’s best cannoli stretched outside Modern Pastry.
This nightly ritual is part of the soul that runs through Boston’s Little Italy, as well as through the veins of Patrick “Pato” Mendoza, a nervous 54-year-old man with gray braids and the appearance of a good-looking bad boy, who that night was pedaling on a motorcycle with a flat-tipped Array. 38 revolver tucked into the waistband of his pants.
Pato, owner of Monica’s Trattoria restaurant in North End, knew those streets well, but he met fewer people every day. Around them were tourists and newcomers, the same people many longtime North End citizens complain about, claiming they suck the soul out of the community with their endless crying over how weekend parties eat up parking spaces and crowds overflow from sidewalk eating places. Pato had long criticized Boston Mayor Michelle Wu for supporting plaintiffs in assessing prices for outdoor dining in the community. In fact, he had even sued her for it.
On this night, though, Pato’s ire was focused on someone else who had pissed him off: Rocco “Rocky” Giovanello, a 60-year-old painter who lives in an apartment over Modern Pastry. And filing a lawsuit against him wasn’t what Pato had in mind. The two men had known each other for decades but were most definitely not friends. In fact, they were embroiled in a long-standing feud that had brought out each other’s darkest impulses, a series of back-and-forth gotchas that started decades earlier.
Duck and Rocky’s cycle of retaliation attacks wasn’t the first vendetta between North End guys with short tempers, access to guns, and long memories. The community has been a position where old-world Italian sensibilities have been a way of life, and many North End-born citizens are as proud of it as they are of their ability to resolve their own disorders without involving the police. “This community is like a small town in the old country,” said a North End restaurateur who asked not to be named because he said he “didn’t need to be accused of talking out of school” about his longtime neighbors. Pato and Rocky] are two guys, usually smart guys. It’s a small Italian community where other people are known to take it personally. It’s a town, but this is our town.
Lately, however, in the wake of the North End filling up with prosperous newcomers and many of its elderly and longtime citizens fleeing to suburban apartments on the North Shore, the kinds of disputes we’re seeing are looking more and more like those in the North End. Legal battle restorers and the mayor Wu. De those days, we rarely see glimpses of violence rooted in ancient values inherited from countries like Calabria and Sicily.
Some outcasts maintain the North End’s reputation by employing heavy-handed tactics to solve neighborhood problems. In 2020, armed citizens showed up in force to protect local department stores from looting imaginable after the death of George Floyd. And they don’t shut it down when they think their way of life is threatened. North End residents went to war to prevent a Starbucks from opening in the neighborhood, and Pato, along with a handful of other restaurateurs, kept their institutions open during the pandemic in defiance of COVID-19 closures and what they thought was excessive government interference in area affairs.
To those Old World types, Rocky had done something that was simply verboten: In 2019, he went to the cops and ratted out Pato after Pato allegedly beat him and threatened him with a knife. Even worse, Rocky went back to the police after that to report small slights that he claimed came from Pato. And so, as Pato pedaled to find Rocky that hot summer night, perhaps he was defending not just his honor, but also a dying code in a tradition-bound neighborhood that was fading before his eyes.
Not so long ago, the North End was as well known for its mafia jobs as it was for its homemade meatballs. Community tango with the Mafia began in the 1910s, and lasted until 1983, when federal law enforcement agents arrested the Angiulo brothers. For the kingpins of the time, there was a mob boss to keep the others in line. Many low-level, trigger-happy officers attempted to fill the force vacuum that occurred in the North End after the Angiulo’s arrest, but none achieved the goal. The much-vaunted prestige of a hard-hitting mafia boss. Today, there is no apparent presence of crowds in the North End and no officials tasked with maintaining order, leading some older northerners and veterans to yearn for the days when the Angiulos were there. And, as someone put it, “the punks paid the price. “
Rocky and Duck are probably the kind of punks that the kingpins of yesteryear would have had little patience with. According to a North End source, a year old on St. Anthony’s Day in August, when the streets were full of people, Rocky saw a Boston police horse being tied up. He allegedly took advantage of a moment when the officer wasn’t paying attention, untied the horse, fixed it and sped down the street toward Los Angeles’ Old North Church Paul Revere, followed by police officers on foot. The tale has a North End legend.
Nothing about the incident appears on Rocky’s criminal record, but if true, this could be the first time Rocky has been attacked disguised as someone who maintains law and order. But it wouldn’t be the last. Over the years, he has become known in the North End for standing up for justice, or at least what he believed to be justice. “He was the sheriff that nobody was asking for,” said a North End police officer who had dealt with Rocky over the years and asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to speak on the record.
One of Rocky’s first attempts to maintain order had to do with a member of his family. One night in December 1999, Rocky and his brother Joseph got into an argument that escalated temporarily. Rocky pulled out a . 38-caliber Array pistol and pointed it at his brother and father, and threatened to kill them both, at least that’s what Joseph later told police. Joseph also told police he controlled to grab the gun from Rocky, who then fled. Joseph raced on the North End track, he later told police, and dumped the gun in Boston Harbor.
Still, Rocky isn’t done. Six days later, he returned to the family’s apartment on Prince Street with a knife, Joseph told police. Inside, Rocky discovered Joseph and his father eating dinner and threatened to kill them. Rocky was arrested for assault. (The fees were dismissed. )
In 2013, Rocky once again played the role of executor, this time with a complete stranger. Susan Bigusiak had recently moved to the North End and had a concept to monetize the neighborhood’s history and culture. He began offering tours to visitors, calling one of them. “The Pizza and Paisan Tour”. Rocky didn’t like her using the word paisan, which means compatriot, or even friend, and neither did many former Italians, Rocky told her, according to a Boston police report. Not only is Bigusiak an outsider in the North End, but Rocky and others assumed she wasn’t even Italian.
Instead of just complaining about the newcomer’s business, Rocky needs to take a more proactive approach. On a rainy night in June 2013, Bigusiak told police she was at a restaurant on Salem Street when Rocky walked through the door and approached her. “Who do you think you’re using the word paisan for in your excursion call?” she told police that Rocky yelled at her.
Bigusiak tried to tell Rocky that the word wasn’t a derogatory term. Rocky was uninfluenced and continued to lash out at her until he stormed out of the restaurant, according to his account to police.
He wasn’t done, though. The next day, when Bigusiak was strolling to dinner with her niece, she told police that Rocky went after her again, informing her that he was going to take down all the postcards in the neighborhood advertising her tour. Feeling threatened, Bigusiak decided to do something about it. A few days later, according to the police report, she walked up to an officer who was working outside of a construction site and explained to him what had happened with Rocky over the course of the past week. The officer noted in his report that “her lips were quivering with fear” as she recounted the story. Bigusiak summoned the courage to tell the officer where he could find Rocky: He was known to hang out on Parmenter Street.
The two of them made their way over to Parmenter, where she identified Rocky as he was coming out of Alba Produce. The officer asked Rocky for his ID, according to the police report. Rocky reached into his pocket and turned it over. Yet as the officer recorded the information found on Rocky’s temporary license, Rocky kept things interesting.
“Give me back my f***ing license,” Rocky began yelling, according to the police report. The officer grabbed his radio and called for backup.
“Who is you and why are you with this woman?” said the officer who had asked Rocky.
By then, the commotion had drawn a crowd of about 30 people, plus Patty Papa, Mayor Thomas Menino’s liaison to the North End, surrounding the officer and Rocky. Eventually, the police took Rocky away in handcuffs and charged him with disturbing the peace. (The charges were later dismissed. ) Despite his arrest, Rocky probably would have accomplished one thing: getting rid of the tour. According to several North End residents, Bigusiak eventually packed up his belongings and left the neighborhood. (Attempts to succeed with Rocky and his lawyer went unanswered. )
Almost 8 years later, Rocky would have some other altercation with the police. In February 2021, Paul D’Amore, the leader of Massimino’s, was inside Alba when he ran into Rocky, who appeared to be and act aggressively, according to D’Amore’s account in the police report. He allegedly demanded D’Amore pay him $140, claiming he was owed paintings he had made for the leader years earlier. D’Amore, a North End character who competes in calf rope rodeo competitions throughout the Northeast, reported to police that he told Rocky he would write him a check to clear up the misunderstanding.
“Are we okay?” D’Amore Rocky.
“No,” Rocky replied before entering the back of the store, grabbing a fruit and vegetable knife and attacking D’Amore, according to D’Amore’s account in the police report.
D’Amore ran to the door, down the street, and into his restaurant on Endicott Street. But Rocky wouldn’t let him go. He picked up the phone and called D’Amore to ask for the cash again. D’Amore had enough and called the police. Rocky was charged with assault with a harmful weapon, as well as assault and battery on a police officer and resistance. arrest. After two years and court hearings, he was found not guilty of the assault with a harmful weapon and the other charges were dropped.
However, for all of Rocky’s confrontational shenanigans, there’s one incident that stood out: the one that sparked the vendetta with Duck in the first place.
One thing Pato had in common with Rocky was a rap sheet of his own. According to BPD records, in the late ’90s, police charged Pato with breaking and entering, among other offenses. (He was found guilty.) In December 2020, officers arrested him after he allegedly stole someone’s cell phone and threatened to kill the person. (He was ultimately charged with larceny and the case is awaiting trial.)
More recently, Pato and his brother Jorge, a North End boss, were among those who ended up on a list of other people that Mayor Wu’s team turned over to police because the team deemed them to be security threats. The two men were on the list, according to the mayor’s office, after protesting outdoors at his home against Wu’s COVID policies and also protesting at City Hall against his policies at the North End restaurant.
In other ways, Pato and his family were nothing less than a generational North End tale of good fortune. His family was part of Argentina’s giant Italian network before emigrating to the United States in the 1980s, when his country’s economy was weakening. Loose drop. As might be expected for a circle of relatives of Italian descent, they settled in the North End.
In 1995, they opened a modest red sauce place named after the family’s matriarch, Monica, who worked there with her husband and at least three of their children, Jorge, Pato and Frankie, and, in due course, their grandchildren. Eventually, the company was split into two restaurants: Monica’s Trattoria, owned by Pato and Frankie, and Vinoteca di Monica, owned by Jorge.
The trattoria was a favorite haunt of actor Daniel Day-Lewis when he was studying violin-making in 2022 at the neighborhood’s famed North Bennet Street School. Day-Lewis’s sharp jawline and dark, penetrating eyes bore more than a passing resemblance to Pato himself, and according to Pato’s neighbor, who asked not to be named, after spending time with Day-Lewis, Pato grew out his hair to emulate the star’s look.
In addition to the restaurant, Pato and Frankie a shop, Monica’s Mercato
One night in August 2002, police officers pulled up to 157 Salem Street in response to a call from a neighbor who said there was a man destroying the storefront of one of the Mendoza family’s businesses and threatening anyone who went near him, officers noted in their account of the incident. It had been a scorcher of a day, with the mercury well into the 90s, and the streets of the North End were still steamy. The cops climbed out of their cruiser to find Rocky, in shorts, sitting on the front steps.
“I did the community a favor,” he told police, according to the incident report. When agents entered the Mendozas’ traditional baseball cap production business, they discovered overturned windows, broken windows and products strewn everywhere. In the midst of the destruction, Rocky continued to insist that his vigilance was justified. “This has been going on for years: drugs are being promoted there,” he told police, as stated in the report.
“I’m tired of him. I know they’re going to stop me. It probably wouldn’t be a problem,” Rocky told deputies, according to his report, before handcuffing him and then charging him with destruction of property, which was ultimately dismissed. No member of Mendoza’s family circle has ever been accused of drug trafficking.
Tonight marks a point of no return. For the next 21 years, the feud between Pato and Rocky simmered, with verbal insults exchanged and hands raised when they passed each other on the street. However, in February 2019, the dispute reached a boiling point. One morning, Pato’s brother, Frankie, came out of Monica’s space and stopped to chat with his girlfriend, leading to a traffic jam on Salem Street, according to a police report describing the incident. The drivers were there, but only one user leaned on the horn: Rocky. Of course, that’s something forbidden in the neighborhood.
Frankie and Rocky exchanged some choice words before Rocky left to go about his afternoon, according to the police report. Later that day, Rocky heard that Frankie was looking for him and figured it was to apologize. So when Rocky saw Frankie waving his car down as Rocky drove down Parmenter Street toward Salem Street that afternoon, he pulled over to talk, Rocky later told police.
When Rocky got out of his car, Pato ran over and broke a glass bottle over Rocky’s head. The Mendoza brothers pounced on him, kicking and punching Rocky as he lay on the ground. Frankie then ripped off the outside mirror from Rocky’s car. car and began hitting Rocky with it, according to the police report.
If that wasn’t enough, Pato pulled out a knife, Rocky later told police. Thinking he was going to be stabbed, Rocky kicked Duck as hard as he could and stood up in an attempt to push him away. Another North Ender saw the melee and, fearing they would kill someone, tried to break up the fight. Once he managed to separate the men, the Samaritan suggested to his neighbors that they stop by the house and calm down. It may have been just a daily street fight, just something else. This is a horrific incident in the not-so-secret passing feud between Rocky and Duck over slights big and small, genuine and imaginary. But then Rocky did something many old-school North Enders despise: He went to the police.
In a phone interview with detectives 3 days later, Rocky described the beatings to police. Rocky named his nemesis “Patho” instead of the nickname Pato. According to some North End residents, Patho, as pathological, is a more apt nickname.
The police investigation almost stalled as soon as it started. Unlike Rocky, neighbors in the North End weren’t inclined to rat out anyone. When officers went to the laundromat near the fight and asked for the security camera video, the police report noted that the owners told them the camera was inoperable. When the cops talked to the owner of a nearby restaurant, police said he told them that he saw the commotion but couldn’t make out any of the details. It seemed that everyone, as usual in the North End, was minding their own business.
Eventually, a business owner turned over his surveillance video, which showed Rocky’s account of the incident, and the following week, Pato was arrested. (According to the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office, there is no record of Frankie pressing charges. )In December 2022, a jury found Pato guilty of assault and battery, and a sentence sentenced him to probation, which would end seven months later on July 12, 2023. (Pato’s attorney did not respond to requests for comment. )
However, as the hearing approached, Rocky filed new allegations, telling the court that Pato “rode his motorcycle towards him. . . laughing at him and pointing the finger at him. “Rocky told the court that it was “an ongoing problem,” which made him “fear for the protection of his family. “
As a result, when Pato sat in the Edward Brooke Courthouse on New Chardon Street on July 12 for what was supposed to be his last parole hearing, a sentence ruled that he had violated his probation, which meant there would be more court hearings in his future. Anger tends to become more potent when it is fed, and this news was like a big bowl of pasta.
It seemed that Pato had had enough. Later that day, he grabbed his gun and set off on his old black bike toward Rocky. It wasn’t until around 10:30 p. m. that he discovered his target, the state on the sidewalk in front of Modern Pastry.
“Fuckface! I’m gonna get you,” Rocky told police Pato hollered at him. Video evidence shows Pato reaching behind him, whipping out a gun from his waistband, pointing it in Rocky’s direction, and squeezing off a round. “I’m going to kill you motherfucker—it’s going to be quick,” the prosecutors would later tell the court Pato said as he fired off another shot. As passersby scrambled for cover, Rocky told police, he ducked behind a Jeep. One of the shots Pato fired blew a hole through the front window of Modern Pastry. None of the bullets struck anyone on the street, including their intended target. When the firing stopped, Rocky took off running for his life toward the Rose Kennedy Greenway between the North End and Faneuil Hall, where he flagged down a police officer.
On Hanover Street, witnesses saw Pato get on his motorbike and pedal. At one point, he got into a van with license plates at Monica’s Trattoria and drove off. Then he disappeared. Police issued a bulletin urging officials to exercise caution when approaching Pato, who considered him armed, dangerous and likely suicidal.
For 8 days there was no sign of Pato. It was as if he had disappeared into thin air. In fact, Pato had enrolled in a drug treatment center in Falmouth. On July 21, the police attacked him, arrived at the premises and charged him with assault with intent to kill, attack. with a harmful weapon and firearm charges. Pato has pleaded not guilty and is being held without bail.
Back in the North End, bullet holes in Modern Pastry’s window have become the backdrop for an endless stream of selfies for tourists, who queued up in even greater numbers to model the bakery’s famous cannoli. The prisoners in the North End, however, had another view of the incident. While Pato had perpetrated a brazen attack in the center of the neighborhood, outside one of his most iconic businesses, few people felt any sympathy for the guy who nearly lost his life. on Hanover Street that night. Several residents, who, unsurprisingly, asked to remain anonymous, even Alidea Rocky had noticed. “Rocky could be a great guy,” said one elderly North Ender user. “But he didn’t know how to take care of his damn business. “
The feud serves as a stark reminder that the days when people kept their mouths shut and minded their own business may be coming to an end. After all, the North End is no longer a tightly controlled, mafia-run neighborhood. “The craziest thing about the North End shooting this summer is that he missed him,” says retired Massachusetts State Trooper Bobby Long, who, in the 1980s, worked to track the Angiulo brothers. “This sort of small-time beef never would have been tolerated in Angiulo’s day.”
One Sunday, a woman attending Italian Mass at St. Leonard’s Church on Hanover Street seemed to echo this sentiment, albeit with a bit of nostalgia. “Maybe all of this will make other people fight for the old ways,” she said, adding that other people deserve to stop talking and let the community get back to the kind of position it was. She then stopped in front of the statue of the Virgin in the cemetery, she signed it, shrugged her shoulders and added: “Boys remain boys. “
First in the December 2023/January 2024 factor print edition with the headline “Take the gun, put down the cannoli. “
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