‘EACH ONE HAS A STORY, EVERY ONE’S DIFFERENT’
North End resident shares alley shrine
Tucked in an alley off Battery Street in the North End, Peter Baldassari, 74, has been curating his personal shrine, All Saints Way, for about 25 years.
“When I was a kid after the Second World War, I started collecting holy cards,” Baldassari said. One day he asked the owner of the building if he could build a shrine in the alley.
“Before you know it, it started growing, and it’s still growing,” he said.
Located between buildings near the corner of Hanover Street, the brick walls of the space are covered with framed collages of religious cards, statues of saints, crucifixes and candles. The door is open to visitors when Baldassari is there.
“When we first moved here to Boston, we moved to the Seaport and I felt like I didn’t really have a place,” visitor Wendy Brandt said as she examined the religious artifacts in Baldassari’s sanctuary. “When I found this place, I just felt like it was a magical little space in the North End that’s not like anything else.
“He has people that come here from all over the world to talk with him,” Brandt said.
“I had people from Washington, D.C., today,” he responded.
“I’m from Australia,” Chantel Sabbadin of Queensland added as she stepped into the shrine.
“I have your saint here,” Baldassari told her. “St. Mary MacKillop is here.”
“St. Mary MacKillop was the patron saint of my school growing up,” Sabbadin replied.
Baldassari, who was born in Boston to Sicilian and Calabrese immigrants, said most of his guests are tourists or people like Brandt who stop by and then return again with friends.
“I’m very grateful,” Baldassari said. “I never thought it was gonna be a big hit like this, but it is. I mean, people wait. A couple from the Bronx waited two hours for me here one night.
“They like to hear the stories of the saints ’cause I know about the saints and I tell them a story,” he said. “Each one has a story. Every one’s different.”