7. 201-10 Cross Island Parkway was the home of both Rudolph Valentino and Fiorello LaGuardia
Currently, 201-10 Cross Island Parkway is the home of Vivo, an Italian and Mediterranean restaurant popular among Bayside residents. However, the historic mansion has a storied past. Rudolph Valentino, the “Latin Lover” and Italian actor who starred in silent films including The Four Horsemen of the Apocalpyse, lived at the home. A restaurant called Valentino’s on the Green, a nod to the film star, opened in the space in September 2010.
The mansion also was home to Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia, who was born in Greenwich Village. He also lived at an English Tudor mansion in the Fieldston neighborhood of Riverdale that went on the market in 2018 for $3.5 million. Though little is known about either Valentino’s or LaGuardia’s stays at the historic mansion, much of its original architecture has been preserved to this day, including its stone fireplace in front of which Valentino proposed to his second wife, Natacha Rambova.