Well, among other things, when they lost, it meant that little Tony Macchiaroli, sitting in Italy, then dreamed of moving to the United States in 1945.

And a few years later he did, and worked in a Pittsburgh steel mill at the age of 23.

And he also had absolutely no idea how to speak English.

When he did, and he felt comfortable in it, he got out of the mill and lived the American Dream of running his own business- which turned out to be a cobbler shop that opened in North Versailles, Pennsylvania on August 15, 1963.

In a brand-new shopping center named the Eastland Shopping Plaza.

He would be there for the next 42 years.

Happy to say "Tony the Shoemaker" is still in business at an open-air shopping center a mile away from where Eastland was- Valley Shoe Repair.


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And there Tony is- on the last day of operation at the Eastland Mall- with PittsburghBucs himself.