A long time ago when there was no electricity and the streetlamps in
Little Italy had to be lit by hand, Peppe lived in a tenement on
Mulberry Street. His family was poor, and so, though he was just a boy,
he needed to find work. But a job as a lamplighter was not what his
father had dreamed of for Peppe. "Did I come to America for my son to
light the streetlamps?" he fumed - until, one night, lighting the
streetlamps became "the best job in America."