Francis Ford Coppola on 8th St
On June 11, 2001, filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola hosted an Italian festa outside the Morisi-Coppola Pasta Factory on Eighth Street between Third and Fourth avenues. The event celebrated expansion plans for Coppola’s Mammarella pasta brand and the birthday of his late father, composer Carmine Coppola. Eighth Street residents sampled pasta, bread, peppers, and Coppola wines while a brass band performed music by Carmine Coppola and Nino Rota. Production designer Dean Tavoularis decorated the street with Italian flags and green-and-red tinsel. Coppola had partnered with Park Slope pasta maker Peter Morisi in 1998. Their factory produced handcrafted pasta using an antique 1913 press, bronze molds, wooden drying racks, and traditional low-temperature drying. A Brooklyn Paper article published June 17, 2001 describes the gathering as a block party, but the surviving record does not identify it as an 8th Street Block Association event.