File:Plaque honoring Antonio Varacalli, Bridge Street bridge, Seneca Falls, New York - 20230102.jpg

English: As seen in January 2023: a memorial plaque on the Bridge Street bridge in Seneca Falls, New York honors Antonio Varacalli, a 17-year-old immigrant laborer on the Cayuga-Seneca Canal who, on the above-mentioned date, jumped from the bridge into the canal in pursuit of a local woman, Ruth Dunham, who had attempted suicide. Though the rescue was successful, Varacalli himself drowned in the process. The plaque was installed on the bridge in 1921 after four years of fundraising among the community by the local Elks lodge. This event is understood by film historians to have been the inspiration behind the pivotal scene in the 1946 movie It's a Wonderful Life in which the guardian angel Clarence jumps off a bridge to save a suicidal George Bailey: local barber Tom Bellissima, who cut Frank Capra's hair during a December 1945 visit by the latter to Seneca Falls, later recalled recounting the story in detail at the director's request, and accompanying him on a brief visit to the site.