There was trouble at the Ivy Leaf the night of Friday, April 11, 1947.

"Free-for-All at The Ivy Leaf by Bob Cudmore"

More Amsterdam Bar room History 

The Daily Gazette and Amsterdam Recorder 

https://www.dailygazette.com/

also in The Recorder- Loopie’s Irish Pub, located at 410 Mohawk Drive in Tribes Hill, is hosting its 17th annual soup and chili cook-off today, Sunday, January 21, 2024 from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m.

Mohawk Valley Weekend Weather, Sunday, January 21, 2024-10 degrees in The City of Amsterdam at 5:19AM-Sunny, with a high near 20. Wind chill values as low as -10. West wind 10 to 15 mph, with gusts as high as 25 mph. Tonight Partly cloudy, with a low around 9. Wind chill values as low as -2. West wind 5 to 10 mph. Monday Mostly sunny, with a high near 34. West wind 5 to 7 mph

DeRose's greatest impact in the community probably stemmed from the years he spent directing high school plays and an annual summer musical he produced for 30 years for the city's recreation department.

Bob with a story for Sunday

Memories from Bert DeRose
By Bob Cudmore

Drama teacher and high school administrator Bert DeRose contributed many Amsterdam memories to this column over the past two decades. DeRose died November 28, Thanksgiving night, at 87. His wife Barbara died some 20 days later.

When DeRose was six, his family, living on River Street on Amsterdam's south side, had to flee their home in February 1938 during a Mohawk River flood. When the water subsided DeRose enjoyed playing on the chunks of ice left in his backyard. He said, "That was as close as I ever got to Alaska."

His uncle Ralph Pagliaro was the last Amsterdam soldier to die in World War I. Pagliaro, a native of Italy, was killed by a German sniper in Belgium five days before the Armistice. The body was returned to Amsterdam for burial. DeRose said, "My Grandmother wore black for over 30 years."

A friend of south side alderman Angelo "Susie" Sardonia, who died in 1987, DeRose recalled that in one election campaign Sardonia organized a Kettle Band. The band featured young people banging on tin cans and buckets drumming up votes for Sardonia.

DeRose's greatest impact in the community probably stemmed from the years he spent directing high school plays and an annual summer musical he produced for 30 years for the city's recreation department.

"I always tried to instill with the kids that no matter what they did for the theater, they were part of it," DeRose said in an interview in the year 2000. "Forget about the star. Forget about the lead. There is no lead if the kid who is pulling the curtain pulls at the wrong time."

Watching video of DeRose's productions, his actors convey emotional intensity.

"What we did was study the script," DeRose said. "I went deep into the inner character of the character - the meaning of it all, the feeling at that moment. If you get the teenager, teenagers can do tremendous things."

The community was involved in the spirit of the plays, "Seeing their young people produce something, something for the kids to do in those days."

He said Amsterdam had more than an average interest in show business, "I remember my grandfather telling me, and he was an immigrant from Italy, they would bring in operas, Italian operas here. Polish groups, Irish, so I think it was that type of tradition."

Future Amsterdam Oratorio composer Maria Riccio Bryce accompanied other high school actors on the piano and also acted in DeRose's high school plays. She won the Amsterdam Thespian Society's Kirk Douglas Award for her role in West Side Story. Kirk Douglas, an Amsterdam native and friend of Maria's father Peter Riccio, called to congratulate her.

When DeRose staged West Side Story he said some people felt it was a bit tough for a high school to do. DeRose said, "We had a lot of fun with it and it came across very, very well. At times we had to be very careful during the rumble scene and we had to cool them down a little bit."

DeRose and his daughter Michele DeRose MacShane acted together shortly before his death in video segments used on Roku television episodes of a show called "Kelly James and the Folk Review." MacShane has followed in her father's dramatic footsteps and is also co-writer of a western series being pitched to TV networks.

In the Roku show, MacShane played Raven Rainbow, a middle-aged hippie, and DeRose played her father Umberto. Umberto was his given name.

You can watch several of these episodes on Facebook and you haven't lived until you see Umberto do the tarantella.