Generous Donation of $100,000
It is with deep gratitude that Casa Italiana – Italian Cultural Center accepts the very generous donation of $100,000 from the Joe Desimone Family.
Read Joe’s Story
From HistoryLink.org:
“Giuseppe “Joe” Desimone, an immigrant from Naples, settled in Seattle’s South Park neighborhood, where he made some money farming and more money investing in real estate. Like many immigrant farmers from Italy, Japan, and elsewhere, Desimone sold his produce at Seattle’s Pike Place Market. But Desimone did more than sell at Pike Place — by 1941 he had bought the market property. Desimone ran Pike Place Market until his death five years later, and his family continued to do so for three decades.
“And that may not have been Joe Desimone’s most important contribution to Seattle — in the 1930s, when Boeing was running out of space and considering leaving the area, Desimone sold the aircraft maker the land where it built its famous World War II-era Plant No. 2.
Rita Cipalla wrote an account of Joe Desimone’s life for L’Italo-Americano in April 2016. Read the full article HERE.
Joe and Assunta Desimone
