Mayor of the Block

On Spring Street, She Rules the Roost

Gina Cecala | Spring Street, Little Italy, Manhattan



“I don’t pay at none of these restaurants,” the Mayor of Spring Street said.

“They like her, that’s why,” the Comptroller said.

“I get it for nothing,” the Mayor said.

“She gets it for nothing!” the Comptroller said.

The Mayor — Gina Cecala, 82 years old and about five feet tall — got up from the folding lawn chair in front of her apartment building and walked into the French bakery next door. Without saying a word, she reached into the glass display case and pulled out a little ramekin of crème brûlée, turned around and walked out.

“I’m good to everybody around here,” Mrs. Cecala said. “And they’re all looking after me.”

Mrs. Cecala is a sturdy New York-born Italian with nearly wrinkle-free pale skin and thick black hair. For several hours a day, every day, she sits sentinel in front of the building where she has lived most of her life. Most of the time, her best friend, Edna Proto — 84, and known as the Comptroller — keeps her company.

They engage in running commentary about the world going by, bantering with mail carriers, delivery people, beggars, friends and strangers. Mrs. Cecala has extra chairs inside for anyone who wants to stay awhile.

“Hi Nicky!” Mrs. Cecala said to a passer-by.

“Hiya Nicky!” Mrs. Proto said a beat later.

On a hot day, the owner of Gatsby’s bar might bring a glass of beer. Neighbors bring flowers and gift certificates for taking in their packages and looking after their cats. One gave her $150 when he heard it was her birthday.

“You can’t find a better friend than her,” Mrs. Proto said.

A man carrying a black plastic trash bag placed it on an already heaping pile by the curb.

“No, you’ve got to put it next to that,” Mrs. Cecala ordered. “Next, yeah.”

The man looked up quickly, then did as he was told.

Rima Yamamura, a manager at a crepe shop on the other side of Mrs. Cecala’s perch, came out and put a hand on her shoulder.

“Gina knows everybody,” she said. “We feel secure when they’re here.”

“That’s right,” Mrs. Cecala said. “We sit here. We watch the store, just in case.”

Mrs. Cecala brought the owners a bromeliad for good luck on the first day of business and shouted at pedestrians to come in and try the chicken teriyaki crepe.

Lauren Roche, a 27-year-old who worked next door when it was a cake shop, said she was intimidated at first because Mrs. Cecala was really loud and always yelling at people.

“If there’s any chaos on the street, she wants to be in the middle of putting a halt to it,” she said.

Ms. Roche recalled a time when a homeless man brought Mrs. Cecala flowers to apologize for his drunken panhandling.

“Even he knew he couldn’t do whatever he wanted,” she said.

Sit for a few minutes with Mrs. Cecala and she will tell about walking Robert De Niro’s mother’s dog. Or about the mob boss John J. Gotti, who strolled the streets and bought ice cream for “the ladies” or escorted them home in the evening.

“If somebody got robbed around here,” Mrs. Cecala said, “he found out who it was and he made them come over and bring back the stuff they took.”

The Comptroller closed her eyes and nodded in agreement.

“He was my best friend,” Mrs. Cecala said.

John Tudda, a retired jewelry designer who has been living in the area since disembarking a ship from Italy in 1958, remembers seeing Mrs. Cecala sit outside with her family in the days when the living room extended onto the street. When someone yelled “Anthony” out the window, he joked, every other boy would turn around.

“It’s not Little Italy anymore,” he said. “There aren’t many of us left.”

It can be a pain if everyone knows your business, he admitted, but these days, his building feels more like a hotel.

“Tourists take pictures of me and Edna,” Mrs. Cecala said.

But Mrs. Cecala will never leave.

“I would never be happy living somewhere else,” she said. “Never, right, Edna?”

“This is a safe neighborhood,” the Comptroller nodded.

“I love this neighborhood,” the Mayor said. “This is my neighborhood.”