by Ari Zeiger
Producing this documentary seemed impossible at times—where was the conflict? why did this neighborhood matter? who would be the main characters? And most vexing of all: How do you locate a neighborhood that no longer exists!? That was the central paradox at the heart of my radio documentary on Portland, Maine's long-lost Little Italy section.
My project began with a simple step: I headed down to (the area formerly known as) Little Italy and happened upon Sangillo's—a small, working-class tavern. The locals pointed me to other locals who plied with me with phone numbers, street names, and anecdotes. I wrote everything down, my notes quickly metastasizing into a spider web of people to meet and places to visit. It was a vital lesson: access, to a large degree, is determined by local and impromptu connections, by your interviewees passing you along to someone else along the memory chain.
