Veteran Italian Market Festival greased pole climber: ‘It’s like running with the bulls’

Frankie Longo was on top of the world in 1997 — or at least on top of the tallest, greasiest free-standing pole in South Philadelphia.

With two previous victories in the Italian Market Festival’s greased pole climbing competition under his belt, Longo, then 28, was going for a third, but this time, instead of stopping when he reached the meats, cheeses, and cash prizes, he hauled himself on top of the small metal wheel from which those prizes dangled, rising high above the crowd and higher than the pole itself.

“I jumped on top and started riling up the crowd. I’ve got the cheese balls in my hands and the first thing I said was, ‘Who wants my balls?’ and then I’m asking, ‘Who wants my pastrami?’” Longo recalled.

Needless to say, Longo is a bit of a legend around the Italian Market. The lifelong South Philly resident has his own table at the festival’s new VIP section this year; his 19-year-old son, Frankie Jr., is following in his father’s greasy footsteps; and current pole climbing champs such as Nick Cordisio credit Longo with getting them into this unique team-building activity.

“Frankie carries a lot of weight in the neighborhood for something that’s so silly to some people,” Cordisio said.

Sometimes Longo, now 54, bemoans the fact that he’s not known for something more serious, such as rescuing puppies or making a great gravy, but he knows that in Philly, this is important in its own way too.

The greased pole competition, an Italian tradition known as l’albero della cuccagna, debuted at the South Ninth Street Italian Market Festival in the mid-’70s and quickly became a beloved event.

The 30-foot steel pole, which is covered in pig lard and topped with prizes, was erected at the piazza at Ninth and Montrose Streets, near the corner where Longo grew up playing jailbreak and jumping across rooftops and awnings.

One year during the festival when he was 12, Longo’s cousin grabbed him and boosted him up the pole, but he couldn’t get to the top.

“That’s when my inquisitiveness began,” he said. “When you have uncles and cousins doing it, it influences you to do it, but we never thought it would take off.”

In 1990, at the age of 20, Longo secured his first of three wins in that decade. One of the most important factors in getting to the top, the longtime union carpenter said, is not being afraid of heights.

“It’s like running with the bulls,” he said. “If you can’t run and you’re afraid of bulls, don’t do it.”

Nobody gets to the top of the greased pole alone. It takes a team, who typically form a human ladder or pyramid, to help get one person to the top over the course of several hours.

“Originally, it’s a bunch of friends but once people start climbing, other people start helping,” Longo said. “You start with five friends and 25 acquaintances and you leave with 30 friends.”

And it’s that spontaneous camaraderie that’s the true heart of this slippery tradition.

“Everyone is Italian at the pole — Black, white, Puerto Rican — because a hand is a hand,” Longo said. “People have come up to me years later and said, ‘Do you remember me?’ and I say ‘Yes, I remember you. I stood on your shoulders. You’re a beast.’”

In 1998, the Italian Market Festival went on hiatus and when it returned in 2001, the pole was no more. The hole where it had been was paved over and the title sponsor of the festival didn’t want it to return.

But Philadelphians never forgot that shiny, lard-covered pillar and in 2016, the greased pole made its triumphant return.

“People were asking for it, everybody was asking for it, and the association decided it was time to do it,” said Michele Gambino, festival producer.

The new pole, forged by Anvil Iron Works on Washington Avenue, is slathered with “at least 20 pounds of lard,” which is procured from a pig farm by Domenick Crimi of Cappuccio’s Meats on Ninth Street, Gambino said.

“It comes in a canister, and we open up a bucket and they take it out with their hands, wear gloves, and just smear it all over,” Gambino said.

Today, climbing the pole comes with a few caveats. Participants must be at least 18, sign a waiver, and take a breathalyzer.

The new pole has more “girth,” which makes it more difficult to climb, said Longo, who last attempted to scale it in 2016 (he got higher than anyone else that year, but nobody got to the top).

He said people have asked him to compete again, but his greased pole climbing days are behind him.

“People don’t ask Michael Jordan to shoot three pointers at 60 years old,” he said.

Longo would rather see the spotlight go to his son, Frankie Jr., who’s participating for the second time this year, and to South Philly lifer Nick Cordisio, whom he calls the current “champ.” Cordisio, 42, won the competition in 2018, 2019, and 2021, and will participate again this year.

“I think my name is in the books enough. Nicky is the guy who deserves the credit nowadays,” Longo said.

Back in the 90s, after Longo and his guys got all the good prizes at the top, Cordisio, then 12 or so, would scale the pole after them, to get whatever was leftover. When the pole returned in 2016, he officially joined the competition.

Cordisio, who, like Longo, is a union carpenter, said he doesn’t practice.

“I work on a lot of high-rise jobs. All these big buildings in the city, I’m climbing on them and hanging off walls, so my job is pretty much my practice,” he said.

While some people form teams to conquer the pole, Cordisio said, “At the end it all blends in and there is no team, it’s whoever is left hanging around.”

Standing atop the pole as a throng of people below cheer you on is an amazing experience, he said.

“You’re up pretty high and there’s fear, excitement, and joy all wrapped up in one,” he said. “There’s no one rooting for you to lose there, they all want you to win.”

Cordisio once fell 15 feet from the pole to the mat below, but wasn’t injured. The biggest causality so far has been his clothes, which must be destroyed because they get covered in lard, as does he.

“I can’t even walk up the steps after,” Cordisio said.

These days, along with the meats, cheeses, and cash prizes, there are also envelopes with vouchers for free cheesesteaks, area museum tickets, jewelry and, perhaps the most South Philly prize of all — a pass to skip the Christmas Eve line at Isgro Pastries.

Without giving too much away, the veteran pole climbers said there are a few tricks to making it to the top. The first is to scale the pole later in the afternoon, after the sun melts a lot of lard off and other climbers wipe some away with their clothes.

“But it’s still slippery as hell, like wiping Vaseline off a metal bar,” Longo said.

Cordisio said to bring an extra pair of socks (shoes aren’t worn while climbing), leave the jogging pants at home (or risk being unintentionally pantsed), and wear a belt, which can offer a much-needed hand or foot hold for climbers, when few options are available.

“I once pushed myself up by putting my big toe in someone else’s back pocket,” he said.

As for the Philly sports fans who’ve taken to celebrating championship wins by climbing poles greased with hydraulic fluid, both veteran climbers said it’s not the best idea.

“We didn’t do those kinds of stupid things,” Longo said. “I’m not calling anyone stupid, but then again, I am.”

Cordisio, who hopes to “pass the torch” to his 10-year-old boy, said he’s made sure his son knows the difference between climbing the greased pole at the Italian Market Festival and the pole climbing done by Philly sports fans.

“I told my son that he’s not going to do that because it’s not the same love that you’re getting,” Cordisio said. “This is something that me and Frankie and his son and my son, I hope, will do one day and I hope that it can stay around for another 50 years.”

Greased pole climbing competitions will be held at 1:30 and 3:30 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday at the piazza at Ninth and Montrose Streets during the festival this weekend.