Columbus Neighborhoods
Is Marconi Boulevard Named After The Italian Inventor?
Special | 2m 15sVideo has Closed Captions
Our Curious Cbus series answers a question about the origin of Marconi Blvd in Columbus.
As part of WOSU's Curious Cbus series, Kirk Smith wrote in to ask, “Does Columbus have ties to radio history? And is Marconi Boulevard named after the Italian inventor Guglielmo Marconi?" We turned to Aaron O'Donovan of the Columbus Metropolitan Library to tell the story. Visit www.wosu.org/curious to submit your question and see the other questions we've answered so far.
Columbus Neighborhoods is a local public television program presented by WOSU
Columbus Neighborhoods
Is Marconi Boulevard Named After The Italian Inventor?
Special | 2m 15sVideo has Closed Captions
As part of WOSU's Curious Cbus series, Kirk Smith wrote in to ask, “Does Columbus have ties to radio history? And is Marconi Boulevard named after the Italian inventor Guglielmo Marconi?" We turned to Aaron O'Donovan of the Columbus Metropolitan Library to tell the story. Visit www.wosu.org/curious to submit your question and see the other questions we've answered so far.
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Kirk Smith wrote in to ask, Does Columbus have ties to radio history?
And is Marconi Boulevard named after the Italian inventor?
We asked Aaron O'Donovan of Columbus Metropolitan Library to tell the story.
Marconi Boulevard.
No ties whatsoever to radio other than the fact that they named it after the inventor of the radio.
What the real connection is, is that it was named after a famous Italian.
And the reason why I was named after a famous Italian is because it was Italian citizens that petitioned the city council to change the name of Water Street to Marconi Boulevard.
They renamed Waters Street to Marconi Boulevard in December of '37.
And my understanding was that there were two main people that did that.
A man named Frank Cipriano and a man named Joseph Gaudieri.
Frank Cipriano was an Italian consular agent and a lawyer in Columbus.
And Joseph Gauderi was a tailor and a dry cleaner in Columbus.
And I think he also lived in Grandview as well.
He had a dry cleaning business, Grandview later on in life.
Joseph Gauderi was the president of the Italian organization, the Piave Club, and the club was a social organization f or Italians in Columbus.
And there are many other actually Italian social organizations.
But these two men were a part of the Piave Club.
Joseph Gauderi ended up running for state representative in 1934, but he ended up losing that election.
I think they just had some political clout.
They had some connections.
They were like I said, they were lawyers.
So often they got together and decided it would be a good idea to have one of our streets named after a great Italian because they had Italian heritage.
As far as the connection to radio, I don't think that's because Columbus was a great radio town or anything of that nature.
I think it was just because the inventor of the radio was Marconi, who was a really well-known Italian.
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Columbus Neighborhoods is a local public television program presented by WOSU