STS BBNJ 08805 & VICINITY FORUM - - NOW 12 YEARS ONLINE 2008-2020

I doubt if anyone will find another pizzeria out there whose Pizza tastes anything like what we experienced at DeRosa's Pizzeria but I am still looking. I have dabbled in trying to duplicate it myself and have come pretty darn close but you still can't duplicate the taste a Brick Oven will give you. Has anyone who remembers DeRosa's found anything like it?

zach623 wrote:

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Wasn't DeRosa's Pizzeria on Second St near the old Romano's Bus Company?
I recall that for a short while there was a pizzeria called Pulsinelli's on Talmadge

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DeRosa's actually had started his business on Drake St many many years ago. The Brick ovens were still there behind the house where the DeRosa's lived when I was growing up.

Second Street from what I have been told by my elderly father had Romano's Pizzeria before my time probably located right in the general area of where the Romano's Bus Company was located. My father tells me they had an excellent Pizza back in the day. He said back then BB had only DeRosa's and Romano's.

If I can recall, Pulsinelli's had the bakery on Talmadge.  You could get there cutting through the yard between Cammarata's house and Katie DiAlfonso's yard!  I was really little but I remember they had like a pickup window in the side of the brick building.  Later years in the early 60's, Pulsinelli's daughter MaryAnn and her then new husband Richie Price the painter lived in the the house that faced Talmadge just in front of the bakery.  Somewhere around 1963 the "new" house went up on Linden Ave. next to Cammarata's house.  I think my foot prints are still in the cement in the basement when I ran across it after the floor was laid and the crew had left for the day!!

P.S. Guru, thank you for the kind words!...

Hi All,  Here's a cool Article in today's Courier about BASILONE/DEROSA'S /PAULINO  http://www.mycentraljersey.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2013306270045 Enjoy!!

BTW, the "Sophia Loren" waitress was my Aunt..LOL

MANVILLE — Before John Basilone became a larger-than-life war hero, he was a regular guy and a great guy, said 87-year-old Romeo Paulino, who used to hang out with Basilone in the 1940s.

Paulino, a World War II veteran who has owned Romeo’s Barber Shop on South Main Street in Manville for 42 years, first met Basilone at a Bound Brook pizza joint around 1943.

“I think it was called DeRosa’s Pizzeria,” Paulino said. “It was a hangout spot for the veterans. John used to eat there all the time because he was in love with the waitress — everybody was in love with her, really. She looked liked Sophia Loren. Of course, this was before he met his wife.”

Basilone later married Lena Mae Riggi, a sergeant in the Marine Corps Women’s Reserve, in July 1944.

“He always had a lot of people around him because he was a popular guy,” Paulino added. “He was a great guy to be around. And he loved to go dancing.”

Gunnery Sgt. Basilone, arguably New Jersey’s most famous veteran, was awarded the Medal of Honor for acts of incredible bravery at Guadalcanal during World War II. He later was killed in action on the first day of the Battle of Iwo Jima on Feb. 19, 1945, at age 28, earning the Navy Cross.

But few can say they know what the man himself was like.

“We never talked about his war stories,” Paulino said. “He always talked about his family. He and his father were very close, and he loved his sisters and his brothers. He used to talk about boxing, too. He just loved everybody, and everybody loved John.

“He didn’t want to talk about being such a hero, but he used to talk about the men he was in the service with. He liked to take care of his men; he would get killed any time for any one of his men, which he’s done. He was a lifesaving man and a good man to be in the foxhole with, in my book. I never had that opportunity to be in the service with him, but to me he was top of the line.”

Though both men served in World War II, they never were in the same unit. Paulino, who was 10 years younger than Basilone, didn’t join the Marines until 1944.

Paulino was in Okinawa for six months in 1945, working as a guard at the airports. From there, he went directly to China after the war to help free Japanese prisoners.

“My brother, James, also served and was a Pearl Harbor survivor,” Paulino said. “When the Japs hit, my brother was in the Schofield Barracks nearby.”

After Paulino returned home, he opened his first barbershop in Bound Brook in 1947.

“I’ve been a barber since I was 7 years old,” Paulino said proudly. “My godfather had a barbershop, and they put me in there to learn the business. I’ve had five barbershops in my life.”

Paulino’s 61-year-old son, Drew, now runs Romeo’s Barber Shop.

“We had eight floods here over the years and lost a lot of the pictures that were on the wall, including many of John Basilone,” Drew Paulino said.

His dad, who still has some war memorabilia on display, described the very first parade for Basilone, in September 1943 at Duke Farms, as a star-studded affair. It was there, among the famous movie stars and athletes, that he spotted the war hero who would later become his friend and frequent dinner companion.

This September, Raritan Borough, where Basilone grew up, will conduct its 32nd annual John Basilone Parade to not only honor its hometown hero but also recognize the service of all veterans.

“As a person, John was a real Marine,” said Romeo Paulino, adding that Basilone felt compelled to re-enlist even though he could have had any job he wanted on the home front.

“What he did on Guadalcanal, he saved America, because that became our place to land our airplanes so that we could bomb Japan and shoot back. Otherwise we’d have no base because the Japs had that island,” Paulino said. “What John did there was impossible. He did the impossible thing (holding off thousands of Japanese troops). That was a steppingstone. ... He made a way for us. He went beyond the call of duty to do what he did.”