The Watertown Sons of Italy Lodge Piave Fiume was founded in 1920 by Salvatore Cesareo, Antonio Abbondanzio and Michele Pane, along with a group of 20 other Italian immigrants living in Watertown, Massachusetts.
Originally meeting in a back room of a Nichols Avenue grocery store, then moving to various rental facilities including Natoli’s Hall on Main Street, in 1938 the newly formed Windsor Club Trust bought the first Watertown Sons of Italy facility on Langdon Avenue. A popular sporting club, the Windsor Club was home to the Sons of Italy until 1943.
Meeting again in various buildings, including Bond’s Hall on Main Street, in 1947 the Lodge
purchased land from the Hood Rubber Company on Bigelow Avenue in East Watertown
and using a Quonset Hut as a meeting hall. This meeting place lasted until 1955, when the
Lodge purchased a building from the Leavitt Shirt Company on Spring Street. Until the mid
1960s this large mill-type building served home to the Lodge, however due to wear and
tear it was time for a new home, so the building was sold. In the years to come meetings
where held in Eagles Hall and the Italian-American Social Club until the late 1960s where
meetings were held at the Whitney Plaza Apartment Complex, due to the generosity of
Pasquale ‘Pat’ Pannesi and efforts of Ralph Giradi. In 1970, under the leadership of Guy
Carbone and Paul Trombino, bond drives where held for the construction of a new building
on the land of 520 Pleasant Street. Finally in 1974 the current Pleasant Street building was
dedicated and became the permanent home of the Watertown Sons of Italy.
