Joey DiFatta: Generations in the Quarter
Joey DiFatta at the historic BK House, photo by Ellis Anderson
August 2026More than 125 years have passed since Joey DiFatta’s ancestors found their first home on Bourbon Street - only a block from where he lives now.
~ by Joey DiFatta
This project is made possible in part by a grant from the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Foundation, Inc.
This project is underwritten in part by Kelly & Linda Baker
This project is underwritten in party by Rose Ali
This project is underwritten in part by Rosemary James, volunteer Managing Director of The Pirates Alley Faulkner Society
In 1889, the first DiFatta came to America. He was the oldest of nine brothers. He came to New Orleans on a boat that docked here in New Orleans, and rented a house at 1210 Bourbon. He stayed there for about nine months, and as a good Italian, he worked, saved his money, and then wrote back to his next brother in Sicily — from Cefalù, where they're from — and brought him over.
And that brother came with his family. Because to come to America, you had to have a place to go when you got here. You could not just come on a boat, get off, and take off. If you did not have a destination, you couldn't come.
So my great-grandfather, who was the youngest of the nine brothers, came in, I think it was 1919 or 1929. We really can't tell because we have the manifest of the ship, but we can't see the date. It's been inked out.
So when he came over, he lived at the same house at 1210 Bourbon. A lot of our family came to New Orleans, lived at 1210 Bourbon, and then dispersed to many other areas of the City of New Orleans and eventually ventured out. We have relatives in Hattiesburg. We have relatives in Tallulah, Louisiana.
The house at 1210 Bourbon Street in 1962, by Dan Leyer for the Diboll Collection
As you can imagine, nine brothers produced a lot of children. Of those brothers, my grandfather had the smallest family, with only four children. The third, fourth, and fifth brother each had nine or 10 kids. So there are DiFattas everywhere. Every now and then we'll get together, and we don't even know each other.
So with that being said, I'll go back a little bit further, to the 1800s in Sicily.
My great-great-great-grandfather was — we don't know his name because he was created to be the Baron of Fata. That's where we get our name, DiFatta. It means “of Fata,” the province of Fata. He was given that title by the king to be the baron of that location. So that created our new name.
So when we came to America, people would say that in New Italy, when they would hear DiFatta, they knew it was a province. So they would say, “Oh, you're from Cefalù,” because Cefalù is the big city in Fata. So, of course, that's how we get that name.
And it's been great for me because I have probably 400 relatives all over the place. So when they say DiFatta, I'm related to them.
Also, a lot of folks who have lived here in the French Quarter — if you went to Cathedral many years ago, Monsignor Crossley Kearn was a relative. His middle name, taken from his mother's maiden name, was DiFatta. So it was Monsignor Crossley DiFatta Kearn.
So we have a big heritage. I was baptized at St. Mary's on Chartres Street. My father, who was Italian, lived on Bourbon Street. When he got a little bit older, they moved to Kelerac and Chartres, on the corner.
Then he married my mother, who is not Italian. She is Spanish. She was from the Canary Islands and didn't speak any English when he married her. She was from Shell Beach, Louisiana. Do y'all know where that is?
No? Way down the road.
My father insisted that they live halfway between Shell Beach and the French Quarter, so they settled in Arabi. That's where I was born.
But I've always had a propensity to come to the French Quarter, just knowing it was part of my heritage. Growing up, my grandparents on my mother's side didn't speak English; they spoke Spanish. My grandparents on my father's side barely spoke English; they spoke Italian.
But at family dinners on Thanksgiving and Christmas, the Spanish people out-scream the Italians. I've lived it. I know it. And that's how it is.
There was a time when my brothers and I were young when our grandparents spoke to us in their language — Italian and Spanish — and we'd answer them in English. And they would look at us like they wanted us to speak their language. But we had to speak English because we lived here.
I’ve lived on the 1100 block of Bourbon Street for the past 15 years – just a block away from the house that was the first home to many DiFattas. It's been a great run living here in the French Quarter. I tell you, when I look around, my grandfather, when he got here, stayed at 1210 Bourbon Street for, I think, seven or eight years, until he was able to get a house on the corner of Kelerac and Chartres.
From that point, he wound up working at a grocery store on the corner of Governor Nicholls and Chartres. In about 10 years, he wound up owning the building.
The grocery at 1140 Chartres Street, where Joey DiFatta’s grandfather once worked. Later he purchased the building, Vieux Carre Digital Survey
They were very industrious people. They saved their money. They did everything they could to make their families’ lives better. And I think it's the heritage of the Italians, what we do.
We cook, we take care of our family, we feed people. We do everything we can to make other people happy.
And that's a great opportunity for us as Italians, to know that we have inherited that heritage. I really enjoy living it every day.
I do have one other little side story about my great-uncle. He and his family moved to Tallulah, Louisiana. In Tallulah, Giuseppe DiFatta and his brother, Salvatore DiFatta, were hung as horse thieves. It was said that they stole horses from a farm in Tallulah, Louisiana.
Come to find out, it was a prominent citizen of Tallulah who stole the horses and blamed it on the Italians. In those days, if you went to court and you were Italian, you were guilty no matter what.
It was many, many years later that their name was cleared. And in Italy, in Cefalù, they had a huge, huge sign carved in marble admonishing what the Tallulah law did and saying that the DiFatta family were not horse thieves.
Even though I'm wearing boots, I did not steal the horse. I do have horses, but I didn't steal the horse.
So it's been a long run. I've enjoyed it.
Joey at the annual Caroling in Jackson Square (2023), with Sandra Dartus. Joey has served of president of Patio Planters of the Vieux Carré since 2020, the organization that produces and funds the popular annual holiday event. Sandra Dartus also serves on the Patio Planters board and caroling event coordinator. Photo by Ellis Anderson.