{"id":32434,"date":"2015-12-22T14:55:09","date_gmt":"2015-12-22T22:55:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/teensleuth.com\/blog\/?p=32434"},"modified":"2015-12-22T14:55:09","modified_gmt":"2015-12-22T22:55:09","slug":"mystery-of-the-missing-santa-letters-hells-kitchen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/teensleuth.com\/blog\/?p=32434","title":{"rendered":"Mystery of the Missing Santa Letters, Hell’s Kitchen."},"content":{"rendered":"

I love this story, from NYTimes<\/a><\/p>\n

\"gF5gl_a-chimneys-poignant-surprise-letters-....jpg.220x0_q85_autocrop_crop-smart_upscale\"<\/p>\n

By COREY KILGANNONDEC. 21, 2015<\/p>\n

\"LETTERSjp1-master675\"<\/p>\n

Last week, Peter Mattaliano, 66, an acting coach and screenwriter, put up Christmas decorations in his Hell\u2019s Kitchen apartment and laid out presents for the children: Mary and Alfred.
\nThese are not Mr. Mattaliano\u2019s children, and they are no longer living. But a century ago they lived in what is now Mr. Mattaliano\u2019s home.<\/p>\n

He has honored Mary and Alfred every December for the past 15 years, ever since he learned of their existence when he renovated his fireplace. It had been sealed with brick for more than 60 years.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cMy brother does construction, and I had him open up the fireplace,\u201d he said. \u201cWe were joking that we might find Al Capone\u2019s money. Then my brother yelled to me and said, \u2018You\u2019re not going to believe this.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n

In the rubble and dust, Mr. Mattaliano\u2019s brother found a delicate piece of paper with faint children\u2019s scrawl bearing a request to Santa from a century earlier.
\n\u201cI want a drum and a hook and ladder,\u201d read the letter, adding that the fire truck should be one with an \u201cextentionisting\u201d ladder. It was dated 1905 and signed \u201cAlfred McGann,\u201d who included the building\u2019s address.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"LETTERSjp3-articleLarge\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Mr. Mattaliano\u2019s apartment in Hell\u2019s Kitchen, a neighborhood once home to poor Irish immigrants. In her letter, Mary hinted at her family\u2019s poverty in wishing for a wagon for her brother. Credit Yana Paskova for The New York Times
\nThere was another item in the rubble: a small envelope addressed to Santa in \u201cRaindeerland.\u201d Inside was a second letter, this one dated 1907 and written by Alfred\u2019s older sister, Mary, who had drawn a reindeer stamp as postage.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe letters were written in this room, and for 100 years, they were just sitting there, waiting,\u201d said Mr. Mattaliano.<\/p>\n

He learned through online genealogical research that the siblings were the children of Patrick and Esther McGann, Irish immigrants who married in 1896. Mary was born in 1897 and Alfred in 1900.<\/p>\n

The family lived at 447 West 50th Street, where Mr. Mattaliano now lives in a fourth-floor apartment filled with books on acting and mementos from his days as a fast-pitch knuckleballer.<\/p>\n

Patrick McGann died in 1904, so by the time the children wrote the letters left in the chimney, they were being raised by Ms. McGann, a dressmaker.
\nMary\u2019s letter is as poignant as Alfred\u2019s is endearing.<\/p>\n

\u201cDear Santa Claus: I am very glad that you are coming around tonight,\u201d it reads, the paper partly charred. \u201cMy little brother would like you to bring him a wagon which I know you cannot afford. I will ask you to bring him whatever you think best. Please bring me something nice what you think best.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As part of his yearly holiday tradition, Peter Mattaliano honors the memory of a woman whose century-old letter to Santa Claus he discovered hidden in his fireplace.<\/p>\n

She signed it Mary McGann and added, \u201cP.S. Please do not forget the poor.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Mattaliano, who has read the letter countless times, still shakes his head at the implied poverty, the stoicism and the selflessness of the last line, all from a girl who requests a wagon for her brother first and nothing specific for herself.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a family that couldn\u2019t afford a wagon, and she\u2019s writing, \u2018Don\u2019t forget the poor,\u2019 \u201d he said. \u201cThat just shot an arrow through me. What did she think poor was?\u201d<\/p>\n

Then there was the fact that the letters had survived at all, perhaps avoiding incineration by being tucked on a ledge or in a crevice in the chimney.
\n\u201cI have no idea how that paper made it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The letters have become \u201cmy most treasured possessions,\u201d said Mr. Mattaliano, who had them framed and displays them year-round above the mantel of the fireplace where they had been discovered. On Friday, they were joined by ornaments and mementos, along with a dump truck, a miniature wagon and a doll. \u201cI wanted them to have a Christmas present, even if it was 100 years too late,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The story is well known among his friends, neighbors, acting students and the regulars at a longstanding Friday night poker game.<\/p>\n

\"LETTERSjp3-y-articleLarge\"<\/p>\n

Letters from two Irish children were found tucked in the chimney of Mr. Mattaliano\u2019s apartment. They now hang above the fireplace, near presents he bought for them. Credit John Quilty
\n\u201cI\u2019m the new guy in the group, and I\u2019ve been there since the late \u201980s,\u201d said Mr. Mattaliano, whose roster of actors he has coached includes Jill Clayburgh and Matthew Morrison.<\/p>\n

For Mr. Mattaliano, the letters summoned a link to his years growing up in an apartment in Jersey City. He would leave letters to Santa under the tree on Christmas Eve.<\/p>\n

When Mr. Mattaliano was 12, his father, who was 47, died of cancer just before Christmas, leaving his mother, Margaret Costello, to raise him and his three younger brothers on her own.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo we had a few rough years,\u201d he said. \u201cFor the next couple years, our Christmases were a little lean.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Mattaliano, who has lived in Hell\u2019s Kitchen for 36 years, saw the children\u2019s letters as a testament to the immigrant struggle in New York..<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m sharing their space,\u201d he said. Their spirits remain in the apartment, he believes, forever young, in something of a Hell\u2019s Kitchen snow globe.<\/p>\n

He has written a movie script based on the letters, titled \u201cPresent From the Past.\u201d It is fictionalized, but includes the letters quoted word for word and the children depicted as spirits in the apartment.<\/p>\n

\"LETTERSsubjp2-articleLarge\"<\/p>\n

Records in a Manhattan court, where Mr. Mattaliano searched a 1905 census. Credit Yana Paskova for The New York Times
\nMr. Mattaliano said he had attracted the interest of investors and hoped to start working on the film by the spring, using Broadway actors and shooting in Hell\u2019s Kitchen and indoors on a set that replicates his apartment.<\/p>\n

But even after he had written the script, he knew almost nothing about Alfred or Mary. He wanted to know more, and he wanted to give the letters to their family.<\/p>\n

He began looking on genealogy websites and found census data that had basic information about the family. With the help of a reporter and a researcher from The New York Times, he found out more, including the father\u2019s death.<\/p>\n

By 1920, Mary, Alfred and their mother had moved up to West 76th Street. As young adults, Mary worked as a stenographer and Alfred as a printer. By 1930, Mary had married the similarly named George McGahan and moved to the Bronx, and later to Queens. Her brother also married.<\/p>\n

But, so far, Mr. Mattaliano has not found any living blood relative. Neither sibling appeared to have children and both apparently died in Queens; Mary in 1979, at 82, three years after her husband. She is buried in Flushing. Alfred\u2019s burial location is unclear, perhaps because his birth name was John Alfonse McGann. He seems to have died childless in 1965 in Queens. His wife, Mae, died in 1991.<\/p>\n

Mr. Mattaliano met with Bruce Abrams, a volunteer at the Division of Old Records in the Surrogate\u2019s Court in Lower Manhattan, and saw proof of the 1904 death of the children\u2019s father.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo their mother became the breadwinner \u2014 that\u2019s why they couldn\u2019t afford a wagon,\u201d he said. \u201cShe was a widow at 35 with two kids.\u201d<\/p>\n

On a recent weekday, Mr. Mattaliano took the No. 7 train to Flushing, carrying a small, potted tree for Ms. McGahan\u2019s grave site. He walked into the office at Mount St. Mary\u2019s Cemetery and was told her grave location: Division 11, Row F, Grave 108.<\/p>\n

The modest headstone bore the name McGahan, but only her husband\u2019s name, George, not Mary\u2019s.<\/p>\n

Mr. Mattaliano said he would look into having Ms. McGahan\u2019s name added to the gravestone. He put his hand on the grave and murmured little Mary\u2019s Christmas reminder to Santa: \u201cPlease do not forget the poor.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know, I might have to come out here every Christmas,\u201d he said as he turned to leave, and then added over his shoulder, \u201cI\u2019ll be back.\u201d<\/p>\n

Doris Burke contributed research.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I love this story, from NYTimes By COREY KILGANNONDEC. 21, 2015 Last week, Peter Mattaliano, 66, an acting coach and screenwriter, put up Christmas decorations in his Hell\u2019s Kitchen apartment and laid out presents for the children: Mary and Alfred. These are not Mr. Mattaliano\u2019s children, and they are no longer living. But a century […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32434","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/teensleuth.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32434","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/teensleuth.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/teensleuth.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teensleuth.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teensleuth.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=32434"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/teensleuth.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32434\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32445,"href":"https:\/\/teensleuth.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32434\/revisions\/32445"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/teensleuth.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32434"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teensleuth.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=32434"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teensleuth.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=32434"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}