Rio Vitale, a Hill community leader with Sicilian roots, has told the neighborhood’s story twice: first in a 2014 photo history for Arcadia Publishing, then as the man who sparked, and helped produce, the documentary America’s Last Little Italy: The Hill, which went from an online film festival to St. Louis public television in 2020.
Family ties to the neighborhood
A 2014 St. Louis Magazine profile reported that Vitale’s grandparents came to the United States from Sicily. It said his parents lived in the old Little Italy downtown, and that he was baptized on The Hill in 1958 by Monsignor Salvatore Polizzi, his cousin, whom the magazine called a local icon. A KDHX event listing calls Vitale a community leader on The Hill who has lectured widely about it. The same listing says he has been an active member of Hill 2000, the neighborhood organization, and has served on its board and as its strategic planning chair.
The book: St. Louis’s The Hill (2014)
Vitale’s book St. Louis’s The Hill is part of Arcadia Publishing’s Images of America series. The St. Louis Public Library’s digital catalog lists a release date of August 11, 2014, and Arcadia’s library edition carries the same date. (A few listings write the title as St. Louis’ The Hill.) Like other books in the series, it tells its story mostly through black-and-white photographs. St. Louis Magazine said the images show hard labor in the clay mines, close families, social clubs and St. Ambrose Church. The publisher’s description notes that the neighborhood is named for its nearness to the highest point in St. Louis. It covers the Italian immigrants, mainly from northern Italy, who began arriving in the late 1800s, and the Sicilians who were also coming by 1910. It also covers St. Ambrose parish, founded in 1903 and rebuilt after a fire, with the new church finished in 1926, and the neighborhood’s baseball stars Yogi Berra and Joe Garagiola. For background on the mining era, see our piece on the clay mines and the Hill’s immigrant origins.
St. Louis Magazine noted that the book’s final photo shows a mural at an Italian emigration museum, and that the Gateway Arch appears in the mural. The book is still listed for loan as an ebook through the St. Louis Public Library’s OverDrive catalog.
The documentary: America’s Last Little Italy: The Hill (2020)
The film started with a conversation. St. Louis Public Radio reported in July 2020 that filmmaker Joseph Puleo, then 27, took on the project after talking with Vitale, who, in Puleo’s words, “was concerned we were losing stories that need to be told.” An undated Lindenwood University alumni article says the two met in 2018. Puleo directed the film. It was his first feature.
Sources describe Vitale’s credit in different ways. A June 2020 premiere announcement on Vimooz names him executive producer, with Puleo as director and producer and Steve Cakouros as producer and editor. KSDK’s review calls Vitale a producer, and the KDHX listing says he produced the film. Public-television distributor NETA lists the producer as Hill Documentary LLC.
The film premiered online at the 20th annual St. Louis Filmmakers Showcase, which Cinema St. Louis ran July 10 to 19, 2020. St. Louis Public Radio noted it was the Showcase’s first virtual edition. The Riverfront Times reported that the film had its television premiere on November 30, 2020, at 7 p.m. on Nine PBS (Channel 9), with a repeat set for Sunday, December 6, at 4 p.m. NETA, which distributes programs to public television stations, lists the Nine Network (KETC) as the presenting station, with program rights running from June 2021 to June 2024. Nine PBS has also promoted an airing on its history blog.
The film’s premiere synopsis on Vimooz describes immigrants who came to work in the area’s clay mines and built a self-sufficient “city within a city.” KSDK’s review adds that the film covers the cost of World War II, the split of the neighborhood by Interstate 44, and Monsignor Polizzi’s role in helping the neighborhood recover. Interviewees include Vitale, Mike Vitale, Ben Gambaro and Niki Cusumano. KSDK noted that the film can be rented or bought on Amazon Prime Video. Its review gives the running time as both 79 and 70 minutes.
Still telling the story
Vitale has continued to speak about the neighborhood’s history. KDHX listed a free talk, “Italian Immigration in St. Louis,” at the Ulysses S. Grant National Historic Site on July 10, 2024, with Vitale’s biography attached to the event.
For more on the neighborhood’s past, see our History of The Hill timeline.
Sources: St. Louis Magazine, St. Louis Public Library (OverDrive), iMusic (Arcadia library edition listing), KDHX, St. Louis Public Radio, Lindenwood University, Vimooz, KSDK, Riverfront Times, NETA, Nine PBS, Cinema St. Louis
