Stories from Union Square at Work

Charan Devereaux

Silvana Brizuela

The Tango Society of Boston

16 Bow Street, Somerville, Massachusetts

2015, from the series Union Square at Work: Photographs, stories and music from Somerville’s oldest commercial district

Silvana Brizuela has taught at the Tango Society of Boston in Somerville nearly every week since 2012. Brizuela lives in Queens, New York and takes a four-hour bus ride to Boston to teach lessons to groups and private clients in Union Square. Originally from Argentina, Brizuela trained as a ballet dancer at the Teatro Colón opera house in Buenos Aires, where she performed in many productions, and studied choreography and contemporary dance at the Teatro General San Martín. She began dancing tango late in her training, but found herself doing it more and more.

“Before I started learning tango, I used to dance alone,” Brizuela says. “Sometimes you have a partner in ballet or other types of dance, and you know the choreography, you know the count, but it is not the same [as dancing together]. In tango, there is no count, there is nothing, there is just the feeling between you and your partner, and the connection of the embrace. You learn what he wants to tell you through that connection. You have to be in the moment because you don’t know what will be. You let it happen. As a follower, you feel where the leader wants to take you—every step. And the leader has to feel your response, so you compose the dance together. Tango made me a better dancer in every way, I believe. It made me more perceptive, and more relaxed about the movement and the expression. You disappear into the dance.”

In addition to regular lessons, Brizuela participates in two annual Boston Tango Society events: the Boston Tango Festival in June, and the Celebrando Tango Musica y Cultura in October. “The October event celebrates Argentine culture—tango, but also folklore dance,” Brizuela says. “Tango is the city, but in the countryside, we have another 300 dances. I teach the most famous, the Chacarera, very playful, very joyful, a happy dance. We also celebrate the traditional Argentine yerba mate drink and Malbec wine—my dance partner is also a sommelier.”

Brizuela first met Tango Society of Boston president and owner Vicky Magaletta in New York, and Magaletta invited her to teach. Magaletta has operated the Tango Society for nearly 30 years. “Vicky is such a lovely character with charisma, a profound knowledge of our culture, and a deep commitment to promoting Argentine Tango artists. She makes me feel at home,” Brizuela says. “My heart and my headquarters are Vicky and the Tango Society of Boston.”

[For tickets to the Celebrando Tango Musica y Cultura, October 16-18, 2026, visit The Boston Tango Society website.]

Nissenbaum’s Used Auto Parts

480 Columbia Street, Somerville, Massachusetts

2015, from the series Union Square at Work: Photographs, stories and music from Somerville’s oldest commercial district

Owned and operated by the same family for five generations, Nissenbaum’s Used Auto Parts was one of the oldest salvage yards in the United States. The company was started in 1910 by Jacob Nissenbaum, an immigrant from Belarus. “My great-grandfather would go around with a team of horses and a wagon and pick up bones from the meat packing plants and sell them to the soap factory,” said Joe Nissenbaum, interviewed in 2015. “He also picked up scrap iron and rags. The doors where Jacob backed in his horse team are still part of our building, and we also own the old soap factory building.”

Nissenbaum’s grandfather focused on newspaper recycling, but passed away at a young age in 1937 after eight years with the company. Nissenbaum’s father, Max, took over the business and started recycling automobiles in 1955, later erecting the first state-approved auto body incinerator. “My father was raised in Somerville and lived to age 95. He knew half of Somerville –and they knew him,” Nissenbaum says. “I joined the business about 50 years ago with my brother Allen and we expanded into used auto parts sales.” Joe and Allen Nissenbaum also did business with their friends Tom and Ray Magliozzi, and were guests on the Magliozzi’s radio show “Car Talk” when it was a local program on Boston’s WBUR.

Nissenbaum’s recycled about 700 cars a year, including all remaining fluids, gasoline, and oil. The company’s two garage spaces were heated with waste engine oil; window washer fluid and antifreeze were drained, repackaged, and sold for a dollar a jug. Joe’s son Neil inventoried and tracked all the parts.

“If you come back in five or ten years, we won’t be here,” Nissenbaum said. “Everything will be changed, but I think it will change for the better. I’m interested in the way communities develop and how people are what they are. And I’m interested in the legacy for this land.”

Nissenbaum’s Used Auto Parts closed permanently on December 1st, 2022.

Francis Fahey [March 1, 1950 - April 16, 2024]

A-1 New & Used Plumbing and Heating

30 Prospect Street, Somerville, Massachusetts

2014, from the series Union Square at Work: Photographs, stories and music from Somerville’s oldest commercial district

Fran Fahey was a collector. “I was born and raised next to a scrapyard,” Fahey said in a 2014 interview. “You become a product of your environment.” Some might remember Fahey’s expansive collection of vintage radiators outside his house on Prospect Street in Union Square, the current location of 10 Prospect, a lab and office space building.

Fahey’s company, A-1 New & Used Plumbing and Heating sold antique plumbing fixtures on Prospect Street for over 30 years and Fahey appeared on the PBS home renovation show This Old House. After his property was purchased under eminent domain, Fahey moved his radiators from Union Square into a storage facility in Everett.

Fahey’s family lived and worked on Prospect Street for three generations. His grandfather bought the property in 1910 after moving to Somerville from Genoa, Italy. Fahey was raised in the house. “In the 1950s, when I was a kid, Prospect Street was still a cobblestone road,” he said. “There were cars of course, but there were still horse-drawn wagons. There was a one-team horse junk man. You could hear him coming from far away, clippety-clop, clippety-clop on the cobblestones. It was almost like a musical instrument. He would yell out, ‘Rags, copper, paper, brass!’ and he had a scale in the back. You would bring out your things and he would weigh them and pay you. The rags were worth more if you took off the buttons and zippers.”

Growing up as one of nine children, Fahey worked a variety of jobs in Union Square. When the New England Dressed Meat & Wool slaughterhouse was torn down, Fahey was hired to “pinch” cobblestones out of the ground and throw them onto a truck. “I was 13,” Fahey said. “It was hard work, but $1 an hour was a lot of money in 1963.” Fahey also painted trailers at Schertzer Lo-Bed Trailers and ran a bag press at Consolidated Bag & Foil.

Soon after, Fahey began working as a plumber, installing his first bathroom at age 20. He would bring back copper, lead and metal scrap from his plumbing jobs and sell it at Prospect Iron & Steel, the scrapyard next door. “I had learned early the ins and outs of a scrap yard and how it worked,” Fahey said. “I was always an enterprising guy.” Fahey also sold used radiators and clawfoot bathtubs to a plumbing supplier on Mystic Avenue. “But one day, the guy said, ‘I can’t buy them, I’m leaving,’ So I got the idea I would try to sell them myself,” Fahey said. He asked the supplier how to price a radiator, and was told $75. “That was a good price in the early 80’s,” Fahey said. “That price rang a bell—I could see there was a market. So I started selling radiators on Prospect Street.” Later, Fahey added sinks and tubs to his business.

Fahey reflected on how the city of Somerville has changed. “Now, they rip a house down to the studs and put in the Tyvek and the HVAC and decide to trim the front in copper,” said Fahey. “They invest that kind of money because they think they’ll get it back, and they probably will. But back then, we were slobs, we didn’t have much. This was a working-class town. There was manufacturing and production and foundries. People struggled to get a tenant, people struggled to pay rent, people struggled to repair their houses. We did things on nickels and dimes and shoestrings. It was a different time.”

Fran Fahey passed away in April 2024, and a memorial service was held at St. Joseph’s Church in Union Square. Selected by Fahey’s grandson, filmmaker Marcus Fahey, this photograph was the only image displayed at the service.

Reliable Market

45 Union Square, Somerville, Massachusetts

2015, from the series Union Square at Work: Photographs, stories and music from Somerville’s oldest commercial district

Reliable Market has been in business for more than 45 years. Pokye Casserly, her brother Onguye Cho and her two sisters purchased the market in 2012. “My brother and I still work here seven days a week,” Casserly says. “Even if they say they don’t need me, I get more done during the day if I come here.” Casserly likes working for herself, and owned her own business at Logan Airport for 21 years before taking a chance on the Union Square store. Growing up, her family owned a small market in South Korea.

Reliable Market specializes in sake, sushi-grade fish, hard-to-find beer, groceries, Korean soju, and homemade kimchi, a fermented vegetable dish made by Cho. “My brother gets up at 1:00 am every Wednesday morning and drives to New York to buy napa cabbage for his kimchi. He can only find the kind he likes in New York,” Casserly says. “He has gone every week since we owned the store. My sisters and I tease him that he must have a girlfriend there, but he says he has no time!”

Casserly says Reliable Market’s neat shelves are stocked by employees Santo and Raul, who began working at the store for its previous owner in 2003 and 2005. “Santo is unbelievably organized,” Casserly says. “He always tells me, ‘I don’t want to do anything later, I want to do it now.’” Reliable Market receives regular deliveries of Korean and Japanese food items from New York, New Jersey, and Chicago. “Business is harder right now,” Casserly says. “When we started, many of our products were only carried by Asian markets. But now, larger stores with more buying power carry some of the same products.”

In January 2026, Casserly, her son Paul and daughter-in-law Yajaira opened K-bok Korean Fried Chicken restaurant just around the corner, specializing in crispy Korean wings, entertainment, and cocktails. One of the restaurant’s signature chicken sandwiches features pickled radishes and Onguye Cho’s kimchi. Casserly shares a video of people dancing at the restaurant in the evening. “Stop by and visit us,” she says.