In the past week, the wider world has noticed that the Park Service is evicting Sal Del Deo from the dune shack that has been his refuge for 77 years. Thanks to his many friends — and thanks to Paul Benson’s reporting in the Independent — the Boston Globe, the New York Post, and even the Daily Mail are now telling the story.
Evicting a 94-year-old is a very easy story to understand. What Sal means to Provincetown, however, can’t be told in a 700-word tabloid dispatch.
Dennis Minsky gets at the real story quite nicely in an unusual literary venue: the Seamen’s Bank annual report. It features histories of Provincetown’s most beloved restaurants, two of which, of course, were founded by Sal.
“The year is 1953,” writes Minsky. “Two young artists, recent arrivals to Provincetown, are hatching a plan. They are serious about devoting their lives to their painting but need to find a way to support themselves and their families. The older of the two, Ciriaco (Ciro) Cozzi, age 30, convinces the younger, Salvatore (Sal) Del Deo, age 25, that they should start a business.”
Cozzi had bought a house with his uncle’s help for $8,000 on what is now Kiley Court. He and Sal started making sandwiches in the kitchen and selling them mostly late at night, after the bars let out. It was an instant hit.
“The line of people waiting to get into the tiny place stretched all the way down Kiley Court to Commercial Street,” Minsky writes. “The two young men were totally unprepared: they borrowed pots and pans and dishes and silverware from neighbors. Their menu grew to include omelets, sometimes served on napkins or even onto a customer’s hands when they ran out of dishes.
“Word about this bohemian spot spread among the summer people, and business soared. Locals and fishermen also ate there. But from the first Ciro & Sal’s was a magnet for artists and writers and ‘free-thinkers’ in general, who felt comfortable in its homey atmosphere and could afford its cheap prices — and if they could not, they were still accommodated. Ciro and Sal were part of the art world; these were their people.”
In a sign of Sal’s range, another piece of his story can be found on the website of the U.S. State Dept. On a page labeled “Art in Embassies,” which describes a “mission for cultural diplomacy” established by President Kennedy in 1963, one finds this:
“Salvatore Del Deo is a painter engaged in a spirited dialogue with his work, responding to the deep questions presented by the paintings themselves. It is this challenge that has held Del Deo’s passion through the over fifty years of his painting career and has resulted in an immense and diverse body of work. His is a style that seems to traverse the continuum from the realistic to the abstract, with a natural fluidity available only to one who is thoroughly centered.”
Sal started a late-night diner, is admired by diplomats, and is still most at home in a dune shack.
