Michael Grasberg’s Migration Story
My migration story is very complex. I will begin with my father’s side of the family. My father’s paternal grandparents were born in Naples, Italy. They arrived at Ellis Island in 1903. They settled in Greenwich Village, which is a neighborhood located in Manhattan bordered by Broadway to the East, the Hudson River to the West, Houston Street to the South, and 14th Street to the North. They settled in an apartment on Thompson Street. My grandfather, Frank Pace, was born here in 1911. He grew up in the area and eventually opened up a barbershop and a cigar store, both located on 37th Street and Broadway.
My father’s maternal grandparents also came to the United States from Naples, Italy. They arrived at Ellis Island in 1905. They originally settled in East Harlem, which was a predominantly Italian neighborhood at the time. However, after a few years, they moved to Hell’s Kitchen, which is a neighborhood located in Manhattan between 34th Street and 59th Street, from 8th Avenue to the Hudson River. They moved because other members of my great-grandfather’s family had come from Italy and settled in the Hell’s Kitchen area. This provided my great-grandfather with more security and a better chance at obtaining a decent job. Eventually, my great-grandfather opened a shoe shine booth in the Hilton Hotel in Manhattan. His wife stayed home where she cooked dinner and cleaned the house. In 1914, they give birth to my grandmother, Philomena Mastrojacomo. She grew up in Hell’s Kitchen and worked in a factory where artificial flowers were made.
Eventually, my father’s parents found each other, fell in love, and got married. After they got married, they moved to Elmhurst, a neighborhood located in western Queens. In 1938 they had a daughter, Shirley. On July 1, 1946, my father was born at Physicians Hospital in Jackson Heights. My father remained in Elmhurst and then got married and moved to Ozone Park, where he had me in 1993. Ozone Park is a neighborhood located in the southwest corner of Queens.
My mother’s migration story is a bit more complex than my father’s story. My mother was adopted at the age of two, so she does not know much about the origins of her biological parents. However, she knows that her biological mother was of Italian descent and her biological father was seventy-five percent Italian and twenty-five percent Albanian. Since little is known about my mother’s biological parents, I will relay the migration story of her adopted parents. My mother’s paternal grandparents were from Hamburg, Germany. They arrived at Ellis Island in 1900. They then moved to Forest Hills, a neighborhood located in central Queens, which had a dense German population at the time. In 1914 they gave birth to my mother’s adopted father, Seymour Grasberg. Seymour grew up in Forest Hills and eventfully opened up a magazine company.
My mother’s maternal grandparents arrived at Ellis Island from Venice, Italy in 1907. They then moved to Dyker Heights, Brooklyn, an overwhelmingly Italian neighborhood at the time. Dyker Heights is located in southwest Brooklyn. In 1924 they gave birth to my mother’s adopted mother, Lucy Miranda. My mother’s adopted parents met in the 1950s, got married, adopted my mother in 1968, and moved to a house in Ozone Park, where they remained for the rest of their lives.
Eventually, my parents met and my mother gave birth to me on September 29, 1993. I was born in Booth Memorial Hospital in Flushing. Until I was two months old, I lived in an apartment on 105th Street in Ozone Park, Queens. After two months, my parents moved to another apartment in Ozone Park, located on Cross Bay Boulevard. I still reside here to this day.
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