Italian cultural center offers free legal advice to Bensonhurst and beyond
BATH BEACH — Jack Spatola said that he first got the idea to offer free legal services to the Italian-American community when speaking with a rabbi in 1983. Nearly 40 years later, Spatola is finally getting to realize that dream.
Spatola is the president of the Federation of Italian-American Organizations, which operates Il Centro, an Italian-American cultural center located on 18th Avenue. While the neighborhood has undergone drastic changes in recent decades, Spatola hasn’t changed much from 1983 in that he’s always looking for ways to help Italian-Americans and for ways to improve his community.
After Il Centro opened in May 2018, he thought he finally got the opportunity to realize his dream from 1983 and open a legal clinic — so he discussed his ideas with some of the other leaders at FAIO and was told, “no.”