Local news and linguine may have more in common than you think.
During her long career in New York, Rosanna Scotto, co-anchor of Fox’s Good Day New York, has shared stories about subway crime, asylum seekers and snowstorms. For about the same amount of time, she’s also helped operate her family’s restaurant, Fresco by Scotto, a Midtown hotspot known for its clubby atmosphere and Italian plates.
Her kind of outer-borough New York-ness—direct but warm, and peppered with long-sounding vowels—seems to have served both enterprises well.
“They liked my Brooklyn accent, and they liked my Brooklyn chutzpah,” Scotto said of the TV executives who gave her her big break in the 1980s, a sentiment that the patrons of Fresco, where fashion mavens, politicos and some Yankees rub elbows, might also express.
And in an industry known for flameouts, Fresco has endured, marking its 30th anniversary on East 52nd Street last year.
Owned and operated today by three generations of Scottos—Rosanna’s mother, Marion, in the front of the house as a greeter; daughter Jenna as the chief marketing officer; and Rosanna serving as the “president of schmoozing,” according to its website—the restaurant is known for pairing its Tuscan-style steaks and scallops with a family vibe.
“You can always find a Scotto in that place,” said Scotto, who is there three days a week. “So many people are repeat customers because they love the family angle.”
Appearing on air in New York on WABC in 1982 and joining the Fox affiliate WNYW as a reporter in 1986 before assuming the anchor’s chair for the station’s 10 p.m. newscast in 1994, Scotto, who has co-anchored Good Day since 2008, may be living proof that local news is not, as is often described, dead. Showing up, asking questions and challenging assumptions will never go out of style, she said. “I think people will always want to know what’s going on in their community. That will never change,” she explained. “And you’re not going to find the types of stories we cover by just going online.”
Some snippets from the highlight reel of Scotto’s four-Emmy-win career include her scoop-fueled coverage of the Woody Allen-Mia Farrow custody trial in the 1990s; Madison Square Garden CEO James Dolan escalating his feud with the state’s liquor authority last year on live television; and ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo doing an about-face on congestion pricing this past December (he is now against it).
“The Brooklyn accent kind of figures into how I make people comfortable to speak with me,” Scotto said. “It’s kind of unassuming. And I want them to feel like they can get their point across. But I will also challenge them.”
Scotto grew up in Dyker Heights, a tight-knit Italian-American enclave known for its love of Christmas lights. Initially, Scotto dreamed of being an actor. In fact, she earned a degree in theater at Catholic University, but the idea of auditions proved unappealing. “I didn’t have the inner fortitude to be rejected on a regular basis,” she said.
But she also had a knack for news. “My mother used to call me Nosy Rosie,” she said of Marion, who worked in the Brooklyn borough president’s office as a fundraiser, while her father, Anthony, was an influential union leader and political kingmaker who attracted his own press scrutiny. The reporters who often hounded Anthony imparted an indirect lesson: The media should be respectful. “It was always in the back of my mind, I think, that if I was ever in a position to ask questions, then I would try to be fair,” she said.
New York City has changed a lot since her Brooklyn days, she admits. “Some of my friends have moved to Florida. They really feel a difference in the city,” she said. But some differences may be worth celebrating, like the fact that Kings County, after many years of playing second fiddle, has finally become cool.
“We used to laugh, in my family, about how we lived on the wrong side of the river. And then we moved to Manhattan,” she said. “But now? Everybody wants to live in Brooklyn.”
C. J. Hughes , 2024-05-17 12:03:03
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