A long time ago when there was no electricity and the streetlamps in Little Italy had to be lit by hand, Peppe lived in a tenement on Mulberry Street. His family was poor, and so, though he was just a boy, he needed to find work. But a job as a lamplighter was not what his father had dreamed of for Peppe. "Did I come to America for my son to light the streetlamps?" he fumed - until, one night, lighting the streetlamps became "the best job in America."