At 'Sopranos' landmarks, remembering the boss

ELIZABETH, N.J. - A bag of uncooked ziti in the driveway, a "reserved" sign at the ice cream parlor booth where The Sopranos ended abruptly, and a framed photo at a strip club were among the tributes paid to James Gandolfini in the New Jersey communities where his TV character, Tony Soprano, lived, loved, and whacked people.

The star of the HBO series about a mob boss with anxiety issues and a midlife crisis died Wednesday night in Italy of an apparent heart attack.

In neighborhoods where The Sopranos was shot, Gandolfini was recalled Thursday with mixed emotions: a global star who made their towns famous, but sometimes at the expense of their reputations.

Vito Mazza, who was busily preparing for an Italian American festival in Elizabeth this weekend, said the actor had local credibility.

"He was as Jersey as it gets, through and through," Mazza said.

The star was born and raised in New Jersey and attended Rutgers University. His character became an indelible part of the state's image, as much a part of Jersey culture as tolled highways, smokestacks, and crooked politicians.

At Satin Dolls, the Lodi strip club that served as the fictional Bada Bing club in the show, employees put a framed photo of Gandolfini where he frequently sat, calling it "the boss' seat."

Paul Pereira of Lodi stopped to put flowers on a sign in front of the club. He said the show gave a more nuanced picture of people involved in or connected to the mob.

"It showed that these are real people, family people," Pereira said. "You notice that every episode ended with him with his family."

Thursday afternoon, a workman outside the club climbed a ladder and changed the club's marquee from "Bartenders Wanted" to "Thank You, Jimmy; Farewell Boss."

At Green Hill, the West Orange nursing home where scenes involving Tony's ailing mother were shot, executive director Toni Lynn Davis said residents loved the show. Several got hired as extras, and the show's payments helped buy a giant flat-screen TV on which they watched the program each week.

"They said it was their weekly vocabulary lesson," Davis said. "They learned all those new swear words."

The house where Tony Soprano lived is in North Caldwell, and fans stopped by to show their respect. Michael Primamore, who lives nearby and whose family runs an auto-repair business, left a bag of dried ziti next to the candles that sprouted in the driveway.

He said the show accurately reflected the experiences of his and other Italian American families who settled in Newark before moving to the suburbs.

"The show was full of so many Northern New Jersey Italian expressions, if you weren't raised in that world, you wouldn't get some parts of it," he said. "The show reached me on a personal level in so many ways."