Set in Staten Island circa 1956, Buddy Visalo is a factory worker and frustrated singer who once had a shot at the big time, but whose dreams of greatness have been reduced to an endless series of failed money-making schemes. His latest is to buy a two-family house for himself and his wife, Estelle, and convert the ground floor into a neighborhood bar in which he can perform. Unfortunately, Buddy soon finds that along with the purchase of the house come two unwanted upstairs tenants, a very pregnant young Irish woman, Mary O'Neary, and her alcoholic husband, Jim. As Buddy and his pals attempt to evict them, Mary goes into labor. By the end of the day a baby has been born whose very existence turns everyone's life upside down. Suddenly Buddy's long repressed dream of doing something bigger is put to the test as he finds himself juggling mounting costs on the unfinished bar, pressure from his wife to abandon the whole enterprise, and an inexplicably deepening bond with Mary.