Anything left of Little Italy?

Published: 2007 - July, New York Itinerary

“Little Italy” is a small neighborhood in the heart of New York created by Italian immigrants who left their native land from 1880 to 1915 seeking fortune in America. About half of the six million Italians who arrived in the United States in the late 19th century and early 20th century settled in an area within a 100-mile around New York City. The new arrivals got together and sought to create the same social environments they had left back home. That’s how “Little Italy” took form. This neighborhood in south Manhattan filled with Italian immigrants, who until the Second World War were viewed as a poor and criminal lot and disparagingly called dago, basically forced to feel Italians (rather than Americans). Little Italy stood for their past, a place where those expatriates of the great motherland could get together. When Italy was defeated in WWII, everything changed and Little Italy turned toward a new future.
Despite the fact that today the Italian community counts no more than 5,000, the atmosphere in Little Italy is still that of a time past. The best time to visit the neighborhood is during the San Gennaro Festival, usually around September 19. Every year Mulberry Street becomes Via San Gennaro for nine days. On the Saint’s feast-day, His reliquary is carried at the head of a procession along the main streets. Neighborhood restaurants offer simple, country-style food, served in a friendly atmosphere for reasonable prices.
With its bounds marked by Canal Street in the south, Spring Street in the north and Broadway in the west, Little Italy is light-years away from the old solid ethnic enclave it once was, yet it is still a pleasant place to sit down and have a good cappuccino. The colorful green, white and red banners and restaurant owners aggressively soliciting passersby to enter their establishments are all clear symptoms of the transformation of this neighborhood into a tourist ‘trap.’ Only few Italians have remained here, but the numerous restaurants are first-class, offering parking service and high prices.
You can still find a few of the original bakeries and delicatessens – where among the various types of cheese, sausage and prosciutto hanging from the ceiling you can order rolls with the finest mozzarella or homemade focaccias. There are also plenty of cafés where you can have a good cappuccino along with delicious pastries – such places as Ferrara’s at 195 Grand Street, the oldest and most popular café in the neighborhood, or Lombardi’s, at 32 Spring Street, which serves perhaps the best pizza in New York.
Little Italy borders on another neighborhood of New York immigrants, Chinatown. The Chinese neighborhood has encroached and taken over large parts of the former Italian neighborhood. A similar situation has evolved in the northern boundaries near Houston Street, an area that has lost all its Italian characteristics. The only stretch of street that is still filled with the original flavors of Little Italy – with many Italian shops and restaurants – is Mulberry Street between Broome Street and Canal Street.
But there are other ‘Little Italys’ in Greater New York. The Italian-American population is most concentrated in Brooklyn, specifically in Bensonhurst and to a lesser degree on Staten Island, where Italians make up 44% of the island residents.
Today, the sons of the late-19th-century immigrants call themselves Italian-Americans and even while being proud for contributing to the building of America still adhere to certain distinct qualities – their sense of family, the language, food, music, lifestyle, curiosity about Italy. For them, assimilation in the new country does not mean losing your ethnic identity.