Joe Maselli, an ebullient businessman and activist who missed no opportunity to celebrate Italian culture and highlight its gifts to New Orleans, died Sunday after a brief hospitalization at Ochsner Foundation Hospital, his family said. He was 85.

For most of three decades Mr. Maselli, usually carrying an unlit cigar, seemed to be the gregarious story-teller at or near the center of every Italian festival, museum, cultural exhibit and memorial event in New Orleans.

He was a driving force behind the construction of the Piazza d'Italia in the Central Business District and helped create the Italian Village at the 1984 World's Fair.

With the 500th anniversary of Christopher Columbus' landfall in the Americas, it was Mr. Maselli who helped make sure New Orleanians could see visiting replicas of the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria at the Mississippi riverfront. And when the Arts and Entertainment Network wanted a narrator to explain the Italian immigrant experience in New Orleans, it secured Mr. Maselli to tell the story for its documentary.

Mr. Maselli founded the American-Italian Renaissance Foundation, oversaw an American-Italian Sports Hall of Fame and, with others, was an occasional White House guest when presidents going back to Gerald Ford wanted to consult local leaders on matters of ethnic or cultural heritage, said his son, Joseph Maselli Jr.

A huge sports fan, Mr. Maselli counted among friends former Los Angeles Dodgers manager Tony Lasorda and boxing manager Angelo Dundee, his son said.

Mr. Maselli participated in the civic life of New Orleans as well, as a member of the New Orleans Aviation Board, the French Market Board, the state Board of Ethics and the Metropolitan Crime Commission.

Although Mr. Maselli knew the Italian experience in New Orleans as well as anyone, and better than most, he grew up near Newark, N.J., and did not visit New Orleans until he was shipped here as a young GI during World War II.

The son of immigrant parents, Mr. Maselli had grown up speaking Italian on the streets of Belleville, N.J., running with non-Italian kids who thought him not quite American, he said in 1985.

In New Orleans, Mr. Maselli married Antoinette Cammarata, who would be his wife for 63 years, finished college at Tulane and launched a liquor store that grew into City Wholesale Liquor Co., a distributorship.

The business flourished, so much so that by age 50 Mr. Maselli could devote himself to the public celebration of Italians' cultural contribution to America. It was a passion, he once told The Times-Picayune, that grew directly out of the perceived snub of his membership application by Metairie Country Club 20 years earlier.

"From that point on, he said this will never happen to anyone else, " said his son.

Mr. Maselli's civic work included bridge-building to other ethnic groups. For that reason he was awarded the Weiss Award by the National Conference of Christians and Jews, and the Anti-Defamation League's Torch of Liberty Award.

Besides his wife and his son, Mr. Maselli is survived by sons Frank and Michael; a daughter, Jan Maselli Mann; a brother, Dominick Maselli; and eight grandchildren.

Visitation will be Friday at 9 a.m. at St. John the Baptist Catholic Church, 1139 Oretha Castle Haley Blvd., followed by Mass at noon. Interment will be in Lake Lawn Cemetery. Lakelawn Funeral Home is in charge of arrangements.

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The Italian American Museum is now located in its permanent home at 155 Mulberry Street  (at the corner of Grand Street), in the heart of New York?s "Little Italy". This historic location once housed "Banca Stabile" founded in 1885.and offered the newly arrived immigrants from Italy much more than financial services. It was a link for the Immigrants in the United States with their relatives in Italy. In addition to a full range of banking services, it also provided telegraph, travel via steam ships, import-export, notary public, and post office; a kind of all in one immigrant community service center. It has been restored and preserved, and is now open to the public. 

The Italian American Museum was born on June 12, 2001 when it was officially chartered under the aegis of the University of the State of New York, Education Department as a museum. The purposes of which, are to establish and maintain a museum dedicated to Italian Americans.

The aims and goals of the Italian American Museum are as follows: 

dedicated to the struggles of Italian Americans and their achievements and contributions to American culture and society; 
To collect, own, hold, preserve, exhibit, and interpret a collection of appropriate objects; 
To gather and preserve memorabilia, reminiscences, oral histories, documents and other appropriate material in an archive/library; 
To sponsor lectures, symposia, musical programs, film, festivals, theater, and art exhibitions; and 
To raise public awareness and appreciation of the accomplishments and contributions of Italian Americans to the American way of life. (New York State Charter, June 12, 2001) 
The Italian American Museum is a direct outgrowth of the extraordinarily successful exhibition "The Italians of New York: Five Centuries of Struggle and Achievement" held in New York City at the prestigious New York Historical Society, commencing on October 12, 1999 (Columbus Day) through February 20, 2000. This landmark exhibition, for the first time, heralded the struggles and achievements of Italian Americans at a major American cultural institution. 
 
The New York Historical Society was the first museum to be established in New York City in 1804. This highly acclaimed and extremely successful exhibition was sponsored by the John D. Calandra Italian American Institute (Calandra Institute) of Queens College, one of the twenty constituent colleges which make up The City University of New York (CUNY).

In order for any ethnic group in American society to fully participate in the cultural structure of the society, it is necessary for that group to have their own institutions dedicated to its preservation. The mission can be defined as seeking a better understanding through a sociological, political, and historical perspective of the Italian American experience utilizing research, education and teaching. 

The Italian American Museum thus is more than an immigration museum. Its purpose is to document the myriad of contributions made by the people of Italy and their descendants to the very fabric of American society from its earliest origins and its philosophical underpinning through philosophers, explorers, adventurers, industrialists, scientists, educators, politicians, and everyday extraordinary people, telling the whole story which continues to flourish and evolve in America today. 
 
Italian Americans are the fifth largest ethnic group in the United States of America today, with distinct cultural values and traits which distinguish them as a people within the greater multicultural American society. Thus, the museum serves as a point of reference for those who are Italian Americans and those who wish to learn about Italian Americans.   info@italianamericanmuseum.org
www.italianamericanmuseum.org 
 

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