"I live in an apartment building that is above where the Allyn House Hotel used to be, at the corner of Asylum and Trumbull Street. It's directly across the street from the building that my father bought in the 1930s." -Paul Zazzaro Jr., son of Paul Zazzaro

"To this day, and I'm in my sixties, children of the people who knew my father say to me that they heard stories about him bringing food to people, and how he gave so-and-so a job. I'm honored by that." -Arcangela Claffey, daughter of Anthony Zazzaro

George: Well, not just one wish. A whole hatful, Mary. I know what I'm going to do tomorrow and the next day and the next year and the year after that. I'm shaking the dust of this crummy little town off my feet and I'm going to see the world. Italy, Greece, the Parthenon, the Colosseum. Then I'm coming back here and go to college and see what they know . . . and then I'm going to build things. I'm gonna build air fields. I'm gonna build skyscrapers a hundred stories high. I'm gonna build bridges a mile long...-from the movie "It's a Wonderful Life," starring Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed

Other than the caption, we know nothing about Paul and Tony. Who were their parents, and were they both living then? What kind of a home were the boys living in? Were they born in the US? And what street were they standing on? Lewis Hine was in a hurry, and he had very little time to jot down information in the pocket notebook he typically carried. He took 35 photographs of newsboys and newsgirls in Hartford from about Thursday, March 4, to Sunday, March 7. The next day, he was in New Haven doing the same thing, and then he headed for Bridgeport. He also testified about child labor at a state legislative hearing.

As I was to learn a few weeks after I started my research, Anthony Paul Zazzaro was born in Italy on January 25, 1896. Paul Anthony Zazzaro was born in Hartford on March 16, 1900, and was about to celebrate his ninth birthday. Their father, Giovanni (John) Zazzaro, a native of Sassano, Italy, landed at Ellis Island on September 15, 1897, and went to Bayonne, New Jersey. In 1899, he went back to Italy and brought back his wife Arcangela (Rubino) and their two children, Antonia and Anthony. They settled in Hartford, where he got a job sweeping the streets. He was still a laborer for the City of Hartford when this picture was taken. The Zazzaros had married in 1892. Neither one of them could read or write. The family lived at 25 Mechanic Street, in a neighborhood of crowded tenements occupied mostly by Jewish and Italian immigrants.

As Hine described, Paul and Tony got up very early most mornings, picked up a bundle of newspapers and stood on street corners, until they went to school. After school, they were back on those corners with more newspapers. On this cold March morning, as they were standing in front of an unnamed hotel, they might have wondered if their meager lives would ever change. As we will find out, they most certainly did, more than they ever would have imagined.

I was unable to determine where the boys were standing. Since the picture was taken at 8:00 in the morning, the shadows indicate that Hine was facing west, and the boys were facing east. Hine took all his newsboy photos in the downtown area. According to the Hartford directories, there were seven hotels located downtown in 1909. One of them was the Allyn House, at the corner of Asylum Street and Trumbull Street. I found a 1908 photograph of it, but the windows and façade did not closely resemble those of the hotel in this picture. It was torn down in 1960. I did not find a picture of any of the other hotels. All of those hotel buildings have since been demolished, or their street-level facades have been remodeled beyond recognition. So the location of the photograph remains a mystery.

In 1913, the family moved several blocks away to 147 Front Street. The Mechanic Street and Front Street area has recently been redeveloped into a project named Adriaen's Landing, which includes the Connecticut Convention Center, the Connecticut Science Center, and a large hotel. In 1916, the family moved to 17 Benton Street, a multi-family house built in 1900. It still stands.

Anthony apparently quit school early, but Paul continued and may have graduated. From 1916 to 1920, Paul worked for the Colt firearms company in Hartford, the Gildersleeve Ship Building Company, based in nearby Portland (Conn), and as a streetcar conductor. Anthony was a wholesale news dealer, secretary-treasurer for Hartford Bottling Works, and the owner of the small brewery. Their father died on June 17, 1918. In 1920, all seven of the children, except Antonia, were living with their mother at 17 Benton Street. Mrs. Zazzaro died in the house in 1955.

By 1930, Anthony was renting a home at 265 Washington Street. His brother Paul and three other siblings also lived there. Anthony owned a parking garage, and Paul was the street commissioner for the City of Hartford. At this point, the fortunes of these two former newsboys took a leap, as we will learn in interviews with Paul's son and Anthony's daughter.