An Italian American ‘salotto buono’ in 1930s New York: The Perera Music Room in the Upper East Side and its Iconographic Program

Abstract

Drawing on the unique documents of the Perera Family Archive, it is possible to canvas the activities and relationships of Lionello and Carolyn Perera as both patrons and philanthropists of the Italian American community, further getting a glimpse of the balance inside its elite at a time of political upheaval and identitarian struggle between the lure of the fatherland recently turned Fascist and the prospect of a new democratic homeland. This essay attempts to demonstrate that the Perera music room was the proverbial “salotto buono” of Italian Americans in Manhattan during the 1930s, both in a metaphorical and aesthetic sense, at least until the enforcement of the leggi razziali in 1938 given the couple’s Judaism. Eventually, the artistic and social gatherings at 49 East 80th Street also witnessed the Pereras’ rise among the most respected patrons of New York, not just of the Italian Americans, thus contributing to the definitive acceptance of Italian heritage as an integral part of twentieth-century American identity.