Photograph by Reed Young
Antonio Cerino has never been able to hear and he can only speak a few words. He was born in 1966 with a condition called spastic paraplegia, at a time when there were no schools or support networks for people like him. Despite this, Cerino is a local idol. He spends all day wandering Bari’s streets. Everyone stops to chat with him, and he answers with a big smile and monosyllabic utterance. “Cerino” means matchstick. Even if some people think he slightly resembles one, what looks like a nickname is his actual surname. He is also known for his elegant sense of style. Every day, he dresses impeccably with bright ties, jackets with pocket squares and cufflinks.
Photograph by Reed YoungRosanna is the daughter of Elisabetta Iusco De Liso, known as Betta, Bari’s first fashion stylist. In 1936, despite Bari’s patriarchal nature, Betta opened a clothing boutique on a unpaved side road. Betta became the local Coco Chanel and turned the little shop into a Mecca for all the well dressed women of the region. As soon as she would update her shop window display, the news would spread through town like wildfire, and her taste would be copied by most of Puglia’s competing boutiques. Rosanna writes poems about her mother, and explains that she feels her guidance even now that she is gone.
Photograph by Reed YoungPeppino Prudente started his career as the delivery man of Bari’s oldest public oven, a huge furnace hidden in a basement of the old city. Before domestic ovens became an integral part of kitchens, local housewives entrusted Peppino with their raw lasagna, meat pasticcio, or pasta al forno. Peppino pushes the dishes deep into the oven with a 10-foot long spade, and bakes them with the fire of olive tree logs. Then he puts an oven mitt on top of his head, and loads up to four fuming baking trays on top of the mitt. Peppino lacks fear and cycles at full speed: Once under the customers windows, he announces his arrival with his characteristic shout “Ué, ohp!” (way up!). Peppino has never dropped a single tray of lasagna.
Photograph by Reed YoungRupen Timurian is a descendant of the Armenian exiles that docked in Bari in the 1920s, under the help of the Jewish Italian Prime Minister Luzzatti and of Hrand Nazariantz, the Ottoman poet. Nazariantz died in poverty and his body was thrown in a mass grave in Bari’s cemetery. On his deathbed, Rupen’s father Diran told him that the poet’s body could found in the family chapel, in the space that was reserved for himself. Rupen’s father had rescued his body in secret, and kept it hidden for nearly 40 years. Rupen grew up in Bari and started knitting rugs in his father’s factory and shop when he was 8 years old. An Armenian carpet takes at least two years to be woven. Some require a decade. Rupen likes to say that one should hang a carpet on the wall to be admired and leave the floor as it is.
Photograph by Reed YoungAndrea is the Orthodox priest of Saint Nicholas Church in Bari. While the ground floor is occupied by the Catholic church, the crypt is reserved for Orthodox rituals. Saint Nicholas is an important figure for both religious denominations. In the 11th century, Saint Nicholas’s skeletal remains were taken from Arab-dominated Myra and carried overseas by sailors from Bari. Today, thousands of Orthodox pilgrims flow inside the crypt, almost unnoticed from the Catholic upper level. It is said that in Myra the relics of Saint Nicholas exuded a clear, watery liquid which smells like rose water, called manna (or myrrh), which is believed to be miraculous.
Photograph by Reed YoungIsabella opened this little independent bookstore 40 years ago, when few women ran their own business. It was her uncle, a writer, who convinced her that she could do whatever she wanted. She has resisted the attempts of her landlord to turn her corner shop into a parking lot. She reads about 30 books a month and smokes dozens of cigarettes a day. Indifferent to the latest trends, she orders only the books she likes, and she also allows customers to read for hours on her two armchairs. A couple of students finished their entire dissertations in this shop. When her lease is finally up, the shop will be turned into a parking garage. Isabella thinks she will spend more time in front of her bathroom window, smoking, because from there she can overlook the sea.
Photograph by Reed YoungMiah migrated from Bangladesh to Bari, and he is a professional wizard. He rides his bike all over Bari, with his magic container welded behind the saddle. He stops in piazzas and in front of ice cream parlors to perform his magic. He’s refined some of his tricks adding a touch of local dialect: His most popular number features passers-by. Although his name is Miah, everyone calls him by his most famous spell: “Cho Cho.” With his proceeds he supports his son, who is studying finance in London.
Photograph by Reed YoungSince 1950, on her front porch, Maria has cooked and sold a local delicacy made of fried polenta called sgagliozza. The demand was higher before the age of fast food, but she still averages at least 40 sgagliozze per day, totaling nearly a million so far. She has a fierce personality and only speaks the local dialect. She has been knighted by the President of the Republic for her career; as she likes to say, she received a higher honour than even Silvio Berlusconi. She sells seven sgagliozze for just €1.25 ($1.40) and she has been repeatedly advised to raise the price. Maria always gives an emphatic “no,” saying simply: “It would not be fair.”
Photograph by Reed YoungRinaldo used to be a floor polisher, but when ceramics invaded the paving market, his job became obsolete. Now he sings in Via Sparano, Bari’s main shopping district, hoping to collect some coins. He used to supplement his meager income by fishing for octopus. Unfortunately, he no longer owns a car, so he can’t make it to the sea. He lives with his mother in the old city, and they both survive off her pension. Rinaldo hopes she won’t die before his own retirement age in six years. Although he often forgets lyrics, he isn’t convinced by most of the famous singers that made it big; he thinks that the business is distorted. Most of Bari’s citizens don’t share their wealth with Rinaldo, “yet they do have money to give,” he says. He recently checked the going rate of octopus at the fishmonger: It has almost doubled.
Photograph by Reed YoungPiero Di Ció was a popular local DJ in the 1980s. Now he lives with his mother in a historic palace in the center of Bari. He spends most of his days at his local bar, drinking and smoking. Piero remembers Bari in the 1980s with deep nostalgia. Great clubs, great music, great drugs, he says with great longing. For him, people in the 1980s were more classy, and more importantly, they still knew how to have fun.
Photograph by Reed YoungMaria began working as a tailor more than 70 years ago, and since then she has always carried dozens of needles on her dress—she even sleeps with them on, and didn’t bother taking them off even while breastfeeding. None of her children ever got pricked, she says proudly. Her shop has the same decor it had in the 1960s. At some point she bought a new sewing machine that ended up in the attic immediately—the old one is still her favorite. At nearly 90, she still can put a thread through a needle's eye in one shot. She works on a table by her shop window. She says she cannot understand why people throw away shoes and shirts that could easily be mended.
Photograph by Reed YoungWhile her husband is serving a prison sentence, Angela Ladisa waits at home with her dog, Luna. She lives in one of Bari’s most lively neighborhoods, the so-called “Far West” that has been plagued by organised crime. Although her uncle and nephew died in a drive-by, her children have regular jobs, she says proudly. Angela keeps three business cards on her fridge: the lawyer, the ambulance service, and the flower shop for funerals. She had her husband’s name tattooed in Chinese characters on her arm, but recently developed doubts about the spelling. She has another tattoo on her back of a giant geisha. Once her husband completes his prison time, the judge ordered them to relocate to another city. When she told her neighbors, they started crying. Here everyone is tough, she says, but we all love each other to death.
Photograph by Reed Young