Ernest Scinto, 88, owner of the Back Fence
OBITUARY
BY GABE HERMAN
Ernest Scinto, who owned and ran the beloved
Bleecker St. live-music venue the Back Fence
with his brother Rocco from 1958 until its
2013 closing, died July 29. He was 88.
Scinto’s health had been worsening the past three
years from the effects of Parkinson’s disease, though
his mind stayed sharp to the end, said his daughter
Marilyn.
Ernest Scinto grew up in Little Italy on Mulberry
St. He was born on Oct. 28, 1929, “the day before the
stock market crash, he always liked to point out,” his
daughter Lori recalled.
He attended Transfi guration School, on Mott St.,
for primary school, going on to Cardinal Hayes High
School in the Bronx.
After getting an undergraduate business degree
—“He was a proud Manhattan College graduate, he
loved that school,” said Lori — he went to graduate
school at New York University, working toward an
M.B.A. But when his father died, he dropped out to
take over the Back Fence with Rocco.
The Back Fence, at Bleecker and Thompson Sts.,
was opened in 1945 by Ernest’s father, Ernest J. Scinto,
and uncle Silvio. Before that, they had run the Pioneer
Nut Club on the Lower East Side, which featured
female impersonators.
It was originally called the Back Fence Bar, but
when the folk music scene hit the Village, the focus
shifted to live music and it just became the Back
Fence. Throughout the years, performances were
mostly cover songs and mostly acoustic.
“The crowd, they wanted to hear familiar songs,”
remembered James Porcaro, Scinto’s son-in-law, who
worked there as a bartender and manager from 1989
until its closing in 2013.
“When they fi rst started the music back in 1969,
that was the folk era,” Porcaro recalled. “The neon
sign outside said ‘Folk / Rock.’ ” He noted that some
years later, as tastes changed, the sign would change
to read “Classic Rock.”
The bar featured a rotating group of about 30 musicians,
who would play once or twice a month. Richie
Havens and Tracy Chapman auditioned to play the
Back Fence, and Mary Travers played once before going
on to help form Peter, Paul and Mary.
In a 2013 Villager article on the Back Fence’s closing,
Ernest Scinto noted the quality of the club’s performers.
“Bob Dylan lived down the street and used to come
in and listen to the music,” he said. “Anytime anyone
would recognize him, he would take off. No one
became famous — but we had a lot of quality musicians.
It’s a tough business: You not only have to be
talented, you have to be lucky.”
“The bar was known all over the world,” Porcaro
said. “We used to kid around and call it the worldfamous
Back Fence, but it really was. … There were
so many tourists that came, and they found the Back
Fence somehow and they all loved it.”
Porcaro said the Back Fence had a special vibe.
“The people that worked there, the music, the peanut
shells on the fl oor, the sawdust on the fl oor,” he
recalled. “You just don’t see places like that anymore.
It was a special little bar.”
“He was really a much-loved gentleman. He was
just a kind person,” said Scinto’s daughter Lori. “He
had employees at the Back Fence that worked there
Ernest Scinto on the closing night of the Back Fence in September 2013.
most of their lives, 30-plus years.”
Lori said that her father was a big reason for employees’
loyalty, in large part due to his generosity toward
them.
“He was really good to them, everything from
Christmas bonuses,” she said, “he paid their Social
Security for them, and other benefi ts that weren’t typical
for a bar owner to do… . He was extraordinarily
generous to his family, friends and employees.”
A gentleman, he
was generous to
his employees.
His son-in-law Porcaro noted that day to day in the
bar, Ernest “was all business. He was my father-inlaw,
yes,” he said, “but that didn’t give me any kind of
special compensation, because if I did something that
shouldn’t be done, he was right on me.”
Outside the bar, though, Porcaro said that Scinto
was the “nicest, most generous man that you could
ever in your life meet. He was just a true gentleman.
He was cut from a cloth that you’ll never see again.”
“He just never had a bad thing to say about anybody,
he was just so kind,” recalled his daughter Marilyn,
who is married to Porcaro. “I don’t think anybody
would ever have a bad word to say about him.”
Beyond the connection people felt with the club,
Lori said it connected people to each other.
“A lot of people met their spouses there,” she said.
VILLAGER FILE PHOTO BY TEQUILA MINSKY
“My brother met his spouse there. Some of the musicians
met their spouse there. So it was that kind of
place, too, it was a real good gathering place. It had
a nice feel to it.”
Lori even recalled being her father’s date to the
wedding of a longtime employee about six years ago.
Despite growing up in the city and having his business
there, Ernest preferred to live elsewhere and
have some property, according to Lori. He and his
wife, Florence, moved the family to Atlantic Beach,
Long Island, in 1973, and they would move again in
later years to Tenafl y, New Jersey. He and Florence
were married for 51 years, until she died in 2003.
“It was all about family for him. He always wanted
family together,” said daughter Marilyn. “My son the
other day just said, Grandpop is the one that taught
me to be a gentleman, because that’s what he was.”
In the fi nal years of the Back Fence, son Ernest Jr.
took an increased role in running the business.
“I’m 83, time for me to retire,” Ernest, Sr. told The
Villager before the place’s closing fi ve years ago. He
noted that business had slowed due to the economy,
and the landlord wanted a rent increase of 75 percent.
“The rents all over Bleecker St. are going haywire,” he
said back then.
Lori recently was going through photos for the services
for her father, she said, when she found a card
from one of Ernest Scinto’s employees, written when
the Back Fence closed.
“Her last line was, basically, ‘It’s been a privilege
to know you, and we should all strive to emulate the
kind of person that you are,’ which I thought was so
touching,” she said. “I don’t think a lot of people say
that about their boss, let’s put it that way.”
Ernest Scinto is survived by his brother, Rocco;
four daughters, Lori, Marilyn, Marie and Linda; two
sons, Ernest Jr. and Michael; seven grandchildren and
one great-granddaughter.
There was a viewing at Greenwich Village Funeral
Home, at 199 Bleecker St., on Tues., July 31, with a
Mass the following day at St. Anthony’s Church, at
151 Thompson St.
6 August 2, 2018 TheVillager.com
/TheVillager.com