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Saturday, September 11, 1999 By Dennis Roddy
Shortly after word got out that federal prosecutors plan to roast and eat state Rep. Frank Gigliotti, his sister, Theresa Curry, was on Brookline Boulevard. A teary-eyed old woman came up to her.
"She asked, 'Does this mean the trip's off?' " Curry said.
The trip?
Every year Frank Gigliotti, Democrat, takes busloads of mostly retirees to Harrisburg for an outing. There's a bus for Brookline, a bus for Arlington and a bus for the South Side. It's $30 a person, with lunch and a stop at Hersheypark thrown in. Retirees at the high-rise love it.
"What other legislator gets three buses?" Curry asked. She blinked away tears.
"He's been like our Tower of Pisa," Curry said. Frankie, the second of four children raised in poverty after his dad died, was the Gigliotti who made the big time. Theresa's a school crossing guard. But Frankie climbed the greasy pole all the way into the Pennsylvania General Assembly. He was a bartender. Then he got a spot in the city Public Works Department. In 1988, after his local state representative left office -- which is to say he died -- Gigliotti won the party's nomination. He rode high until the day federal agents scooped him up and all but held him upside-down by the ankles to shake information out before telling him they had him on tape doing yet-to-be-revealed bad stuff.
"Tragedy hits every family. You just gotta stand by him and show support. That's what I'm doing," Theresa said.
Brookline loves Frank Gigliotti because Brookline understands him.
Unburdened by airs and graces, Gigliotti is a roly-poly, chain-smoking, ward heeler with a beefy handshake out of "The Last Hurrah," and a temper out of Vesuvius. Words most of us reserve for bad drivers he is just as likely to use in his prayers. Metaphor is useless to him. You tell him what you want and he tells you what it will take. He favors legalized gambling, thinks patronage is fine, but is repelled by pretense. For two years this wonderfully inelegant man was allied with Tom Murphy, who ran for mayor of Pittsburgh as the reform candidate. It made as much sense as pouring vodka into a milkshake.
If you ask Tom Murphy to get a job for your nephew, he will give you a lecture about the virtues of public service. If you ask Frank Gigliotti, he will ask if your nephew is a Democrat.
Brookline, folded into the creases of Pittsburgh's South Hills, is a place very much unto itself. The boulevard is crammed with busy little storefronts. Some have back rooms with peep-holes in the doors and, if a visitor stands around long enough, he will notice a few of the video poker machines tucked away for recognizable customers. Gigliotti wanted to make them legal, just as he wanted to make riverboat gambling legal.
But Brookline's love of Frank Gigliotti had less to do with his solemn commitment to a casino-based economy than that he takes care of old-fashioned business.
"He helped me with a fishing license. He saved me the trip Downtown," said Bernie Meyer, who's been cutting hair along Brookline Boulevard for 46 years.
"You go to his office there and, boy, those people treat you royal," said Joe Longo, as he sat down in one of Meyer's chairs for a trim. "They always think of the bad things, just like with Sinatra now. That guy, he gave so much out -- it's just like Frank." Which Frank he means it is hard to tell at first, until you think about it and realize that if he means one, he means the other.
But only one is headed for a trip Downtown.
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