CHARACTERS OF THE VILLAGE
Roberto Monticello
“Mayor of the Meatpacking District”
ROBERTO MONTICELLO at the intersection of Greenwich Street and Little West 12th Street where reconstructed Belgian block street paving and historic street poles add to the charm of the Gansevoort Plaza. Photo by Brian J. Pape, AIA.
By Brian and Joy Pape
Award-winning film maker Roberto Monticello proclaims, “In NYC you live; other places you just exist.” Thirty years ago, his community declared him the ‘Mayor of the Meatpacking.’ So how did he get to this status?
His parents were refugees fleeing from fascist Europe (Spain and Italy). They met as acrobatic and dancing performers in Cuba where Roberto was born. They founded the “Flying Monticellos” circus act during the tumultuous years of toppling the Batista government and living under Castro’s communist revolution. They later found work in NYC and on January 7, 1974, Monticello moved in with an uncle at 838 Greenwich Street.
Over the past 50 years, he has moved around, pursued his career and raised two daughters. He always maintained a home in the Meatpacking District, with all its dramatic changes. He remembers the first Halloween Parade, with the Ralph Lee puppets. The rough neighborhood was “the wild west” at the time. Hector’s Diner served the meatpackers and the late-nighters.
He started his career as stage director at Victoria Theatre, London in1975 and later became a theater tour director in Italy in 1977. As a film director in 1979, his experience broadened to television, film, and books. Monticello has done 28 films in nine countries and has directed 56 play productions, and written 19 of them.
One of Monticello’s films is “Children of the Night,” a documentary exposé of the trafficking of children from Cambodia, Malaysia, and the Philippines to the U.S. for sexual purposes. At one time, 34 children had been rescued by the film crew and several “homes” have been closed due to the attention this film has created.
In the Guest of a Guest website, Monticello stated, “I never wanted to become a public figure. But I see the good it may do for the causes I’m working on. To create films that bring to light the realities of the suffering going on in the world it takes funding.” He is one of a few Cuban-born directors living in the U.S. with permission to film in Cuba, while working to end the embargo of Cuba, where he delivers needed medicines each year. He is a humanitarian who has also journeyed to Ethiopia three times during the famine, once as a refugee camp director. Recently, he traveled to Ukraine and Gaza on humanitarian aid programs.
Monticello intends to encourage the city to create the Meatpacking District as NYC’s official Arts District, building on the history of Westbeth, Roy Lichtenstein studio, and many other artists’ lofts as well as the Whitney Museum of American Art. He believes that affordable housing can be a key part of the city efforts to make this an Arts District by providing incentives for artists to rent and work here. It’s an idea he has been working on for years.
The “Mayor” loves to hang out in a variety of places, from the Whitney to Hector’s to the bars and restaurants. His favorite thing about his work is that he always gets to help people. The least favorite thing is that it is hard to plan ahead, as things just keep coming up. Monticello deals with that by just focusing on the moment. He told us, “If I lost everything tomorrow, I’d still want to be homeless in the Meatpacking District!”
Contact Monticello at robertomonticello@gmail.com for charity opportunities or to support his Arts District work.
Monticello has won nine different awards including:
