YEARS before she transformed herself into CNBC’s “Money Honey” and got caught up in the recent Citigroup jet-travel mess, Maria Bartiromo was a big-haired, boy-teasing, high-school honey who cheated on her squeeze and nearly caused a Brooklyn gang rumble.
“Maria and I grew up in Dyker Heights. She was the girlfriend of Joey Maria, who ran with the 13th Avenue Boys, a group of toughs that hung on the corner of 13th and 78th,” a longtime Page Six source said.
“Joey was a handsome, wiry thing, a very cool kid. Maria [a student at the Catholic all-girl Fontbonne Hall Academy on Shore Road] was a gorgeous thingy whose eyes melted all the guys’ hearts.”
Our source, a member of the rival “7th Avenue Boys,” said: “Maria was always there on Joey’s arm, all Jordache’d up in heels. She had a great bum, too, but even though she dressed like a hot chick . . . inside she was a real down-to-earth, intelligent sweetheart.”
One day in the ’80s, “We were just talking innocently, then started flirting, and then some full-on making out that got to about second base. I was in heaven. She was a great kisser. We thought the concrete handball walls provided cover, but it didn’t – somebody saw us and told Joey . . . Rumors started spreading the 13th Avenue guys were going to come down to kick my ass.”
As the 7th Avenue Boys were boozing and listening to a boom box in the woods of the Dyker Beach Golf Course that night, the 13th Avenue mob showed. “We were surrounded,” our source relates. “Joey accused me of making out with Maria. Naturally I told him, ‘You’re [bleeping] crazy.’ It looked like it was going to turn into an all-out brawl when . . . Maria starts yelling at Joey that he’s being stupid, she loves him . . . and would never make out with anyone else, let alone [me] and that she brought her girlfriend along so he could hear it from her.
“The girlfriend said: ‘Joey, Maria and I went straight from school to my house. She even ate dinner over. Just stop making trouble, you idiot! She loves you!’
“This girl saved all our asses.”
CNBC did not return calls or an e-mail. But it’s a good thing Bartiromo never wed her old flame, or she’d be Maria Maria.