Little Italy | |
---|---|
![]() Sign above Mulberry Street at Broome Street | |
![]() Location in New York City | |
Coordinates: 40°43′08″N73°59′49″W / 40.719°N 73.997°W | |
Country | ![]() |
State | ![]() |
City | New York City |
Borough | Manhattan |
Community District | Manhattan 3 [1] |
ZIP Code | 10013 |
Area codes | 212, 332, 646, and 917 |
Chinatown and Little Italy Historic District | |
NRHP reference No. | 10000012 |
Added to NRHP | February 12, 2010 |
Little Italy (also Italian : Piccola Italia) is a neighborhood in Lower Manhattan in New York City, known for its Italian population. [2] It is bounded on the west by Tribeca and Soho, on the south by Chinatown, on the east by the Bowery and Lower East Side, and on the north by Nolita.
Little Italy used to extend as far south as Worth Street, as far north as Houston Street, as far west as Lafayette Street, and as far east as Bowery.[ citation needed ] It is now only five blocks on Mulberry Street north of Canal St. [3] Little Italy originated at Mulberry Bend south of Canal, in what had formerly been the Five Points area but is now the heart of Chinatown. Jacob Riis described Mulberry Bend as "the foul core of New York's slums." [4] During this time period "Immigrants of the late 19th century usually settled in ethnic neighborhoods". [5] Therefore, the "mass immigration from Italy during the 1880s" [6] led to the large settlement of Italian immigrants in lower Manhattan. The results of such migration had created an "influx of Italian immigrants" which had "led to the commercial gathering of their dwelling and business". [7]
Italian immigrants from Naples settled on Mulberry Street, immigrants from Puglia and Calabria settled on Mott Street, immigrants from Sicily settled on Elizabeth Street, and immigrants from northern Italy, especially Genoa settled on Baxter Street.
Bill Tonelli from New York magazine said, "Once, Little Italy was like an insular Neapolitan village re-created on these shores, with its own language, customs, and financial and cultural institutions." [4] Little Italy was not the largest Italian neighborhood in New York City, as East Harlem (or Italian Harlem) had a larger Italian population. Tonelli said that Little Italy "was perhaps the city's poorest Italian neighborhood". [4]
In 1910 Little Italy had almost 10,000 Italians; that was the peak of the community's Italian population. At the turn of the 20th century, over 90% of the residents of the Fourteenth Ward were of Italian birth or origins. [4] Tonelli said that it meant "that residents began moving out to more spacious digs almost as soon as they arrived." [4] Such a vastly growing community impacted the "U.S. labor movement in the 20th century" by making up much of the labor population in the garment industry". [6]
After World War II, many residents of the Lower East Side began moving to Brooklyn, Staten Island, eastern Long Island, Westchester and New Jersey. Chinese immigrants became an increased presence after the U.S. Immigration Act of 1965 removed immigration restrictions, and the Manhattan Chinatown to Little Italy's south expanded. In 2004, Tonelli said, "You can go back 30 years and find newspaper clips chronicling the expansion of Chinatown and mourning the loss of Little Italy." [4]
Before 2004, several upscale businesses entered the northern portion of the area between Houston and Kenmare Street. Tonelli said, "Real-estate prices zoomed, making it even tougher for the old-timers—residents and businesspeople alike—to hang on." [4] After the September 11 attacks in 2001, areas below Houston Street were cut off for the rest of the fall of 2001. The San Gennaro feast, scheduled for September 13, was postponed. Business from the Financial District dropped severely, due to the closure of Park Row, which connected Chinatown and the Civic Center; as a result, residents in Little Italy and Chinatown suffered. Tonelli said the post-9/11 events "strangely enough, ended up motivating all these newfangled efforts to save what's left of the old neighborhood." [4]
In 2004 Tonelli said "Today, Little Italy is a veneer—50 or so restaurants and cafés catering to tourists, covering a dense neighborhood of tenements shared by recent Chinese immigrants, young Americans who can't afford Soho, and a few remaining real live Italians." [4] This sentiment has also been echoed by Italian culture and heritage website ItalianAware. The site has called the dominance of Italians in the area "relatively short-lived." It attributes this to the quick financial prosperity many Italians achieved, which allowed them to leave the cramped neighborhood for areas in Brooklyn and Queens. The site also goes on to state that the area is currently referred to as Little Italy more out of nostalgia than as a reflection of a true ethnic population. [8]
In 2010, Little Italy and Chinatown were listed in a single historic district on the National Register of Historic Places. [9] Little Italy, by this point, was shrinking rapidly. [3]
Foods and traditions that were invented in Little Italy include sausage and peppers and the rainbow cookie.[ citation needed ] In addition, the Italian-American Christmas Eve tradition of the Feast of the Seven Fishes originated in Little Italy back in the late 1800s. [10]
The New York Times sent its reporters to characterize the Little Italy/Mulberry neighborhood in May 1896:
They are laborers; toilers in all grades of manual work; they are artisans, they are junkman, and here, too, dwell the rag pickers. ... There is a monster colony of Italians who might be termed the commercial or shop keeping community of the Latins. Here are all sorts of stores, pensions, groceries, fruit emporiums, tailors, shoemakers, wine merchants, importers, musical instrument makers. ... There are notaries, lawyers, doctors, apothecaries, undertakers. ... There are more bankers among the Italians than among any other foreigners except the Germans in the city. [11]
Since the late 1960s, when the United States allowed immigration from China, Chinatown's traditional boundary at Canal Street has inched northward into Little Italy. By the 1990s, while many Italian business remained, the blocks between Canal and Kenmare Streets had taken on a feel of Chinatown, though locals continue to refer to the area (including Nolita) as Little Italy. [12]
As of the 2000 census, 1,211 residents claiming Italian ancestry lived in three census tracts that make up Little Italy. Those residents comprise 8.25% of the population in the community, which is similar to the proportion of those of Italian ancestry throughout New York City. Bill Tonelli of New York magazine contrasted Little Italy with the Manhattan Chinatown; in 2000, of the residents of the portions of Chinatown south of Grand Street, 81% were of Chinese origins. [4]
In 2004, Tonelli revisited the issue, saying, "Little Italy may always endure as an open-air theme park of nineteenth- and twentieth-century European immigration to the Lower East Side ... But you'll spend a long time in the neighborhood before you hear anyone speak Italian, and then the speaker will be a tourist from Milan." [13] Tonelli added, "You have to slow your gaze to find the neighbors in this neighborhood, because they're so overwhelmed and outnumbered by the tourists. But once you focus, you can see them, standing (or sitting) in the interstices, taking in the scene, like the group of men, mostly senior citizens, loitering contentedly under an awning on Mulberry Street." [13]
By 2010 the U.S. Community Survey found that none of the people living in Little Italy were born in Italy, and 5% of residents identified as Italian American. [14]
Little Italy was home to dozens of restaurants that serve authentic Italian cuisine, but between March 2013 and March 2014, eight eateries closed down. [15]
Since 2004, Sorrento Lactalis funds neighborhood cultural events in Little Italy. [4]
The Feast of San Gennaro originally was once only a one-day religious commemoration. It began in September 1926 with the new arrival of immigrants from Naples. The Italian immigrants congregated along Mulberry Street in Manhattan's Little Italy to celebrate San Gennaro as the Patron Saint of Naples. The Feast of San Gennaro is a large street fair, lasting 11 days, that takes place every September along Mulberry Street between Houston and Canal Streets. [16]
The festival is an annual celebration of Italian culture and the Italian-American community. In 1995, Mort Berkowitz became the professional manager of a community group that had been formed to take over management of the San Gennaro feast. Since then, Berkowitz became involved in other recreational activities in Little Italy, including the summer, Carnevale, Columbus Day, and Christmas events. [4]
Richard Alba, a sociologist and professor at University at Albany, SUNY, said, "The fascinating part here is the way in which ethnic tourism—not only by Italian Americans but by people who want to see an authentic urban village—keeps these neighborhoods going." [13]
Little Italy was also home to Alleva Dairy, the oldest cheese shop in the United States. The store was founded in 1892 and was located on Grand Street [17] until March 2023, when it closed its Little Italy location and announced a move to Lyndhurst, New Jersey. [18]
Little Italy residents have seen organized crime since the early 20th century. Powerful members of the Italian Mafia have operated in Little Italy.
Little Italy is the locale of the fictional Corleone family depicted in the novel The Godfather and the film trilogy based on it. It is also the setting for the Martin Scorsese film Mean Streets (1973), starring Harvey Keitel and Robert De Niro, the latter of whom also grew up in the neighborhood, [24] and the Luc Besson film Léon: The Professional (1994), starring Jean Reno, Gary Oldman, and Natalie Portman. [25] It is also depicted in the series finale of The Sopranos , titled "Made in America", where a character walks down a block and finds himself in Chinatown, demonstrating how Little Italy has shrunk. [26]
Other Italian American neighborhoods in New York City include:
Five Points was a 19th-century neighborhood in Lower Manhattan, New York City. The neighborhood, partly built on low-lying land which had filled in the freshwater lake known as the Collect Pond, was generally defined as being bound by Centre Street to the west, the Bowery to the east, Canal Street to the north, and Park Row to the south. The Five Points gained international notoriety as a densely populated, disease-ridden, crime-infested slum which existed for over 70 years.
Manhattan's Chinatown is a neighborhood in Lower Manhattan, New York City, bordering the Lower East Side to its east, Little Italy to its north, Civic Center to its south, and Tribeca to its west. With an estimated population of 90,000 to 100,000 people, Chinatown is home to the highest concentration of Chinese people in the Western Hemisphere. Manhattan's Chinatown is also one of the oldest Chinese ethnic enclaves. The Manhattan Chinatown is one of nine Chinatown neighborhoods in New York City, as well as one of twelve in the New York metropolitan area, which contains the largest ethnic Chinese population outside of Asia, comprising an estimated 893,697 uniracial individuals as of 2017.
Nolita, sometimes written as NoLIta and deriving from "North of Little Italy", is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. Nolita is situated in Lower Manhattan, bounded on the north by Houston Street, on the east by the Bowery, on the south roughly by Broome Street, and on the west by Lafayette Street. It lies east of SoHo, south of NoHo, west of the Lower East Side, and north of Little Italy and Chinatown.
East Harlem, also known as Spanish Harlem or El Barrio, is a neighborhood of Upper Manhattan in New York City, north of the Upper East Side and bounded by 96th Street to the south, Fifth Avenue to the west, and the East and Harlem Rivers to the east and north. Despite its name, it is generally not considered to be a part of Harlem proper, but it is one of the neighborhoods included in Greater Harlem.
Mulberry Street is a principal thoroughfare in Lower Manhattan, New York City, United States. It is historically associated with Italian-American culture and history, and in the late 19th and early 20th centuries was the heart of Manhattan's Little Italy.
The Feast of San Gennaro, also known as San Gennaro Festival, is a Neapolitan and Italian-American patronal festival dedicated to Saint Januarius, patron saint of Naples and Little Italy, New York.
Mott Street is a narrow but busy thoroughfare that runs in a north–south direction in the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is regarded as Chinatown's unofficial "Main Street". Mott Street runs from Bleecker Street in the north to Chatham Square in the south. It is a one-way street with southbound-running vehicular traffic only.
Lombardi's is a pizzeria located at 32 Spring Street on the corner of Mott Street in the Nolita neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. Opened in 1905, it has been recognized by the Pizza Hall of Fame as the first pizzeria in the United States.
Ciro Perrone was a New York City mobster and soldier in the Genovese crime family. Perrone was captain Matthew Ianniello's top soldier and his second-in-command since the 1970s.
Two Bridges is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan, nestled at the southern end of the Lower East Side and Chinatown on the East River waterfront, near the footings of Brooklyn Bridge and of Manhattan Bridge. The neighborhood has been considered to be a part of the Lower East Side for much of its history. Two Bridges has traditionally been an immigrant neighborhood, previously populated by immigrants from Europe, and more recently from Latin America and China. The Two Bridges Historic District was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in September 2003.
Little Fuzhou is a neighborhood in the Two Bridges and Lower East Side areas of the borough of Manhattan in New York City, United States. Little Fuzhou constitutes a portion of the greater Manhattan Chinatown, home to the highest concentration of Chinese people in the Western Hemisphere. Manhattan's Chinatown is also one of the oldest Chinese ethnic enclaves.
Since its founding in 1625 by Dutch traders as New Amsterdam, New York City has been a major destination for immigrants of many nationalities who have formed ethnic enclaves, neighborhoods dominated by one ethnicity. Freed African American slaves also moved to New York City in the Great Migration and the later Second Great Migration and formed ethnic enclaves. These neighborhoods are set apart from the main city by differences such as food, goods for sale, or even language. Ethnic enclaves provide inhabitants security in work and social opportunities, but limit economic opportunities, do not encourage the development of English speaking, and keep immigrants in their own culture.
The Church of the Most Precious Blood is a Roman Catholic parish located in New York City. The parish is under the authority of the Archdiocese of New York, and is the National Shrine Church of San Gennaro. Located at 113 Baxter Street with an additional entrance on Mulberry Street, the Church of the Most Precious Blood is part of Manhattan's Little Italy neighborhood. The Most Precious Blood parished merged with Old St. Patrick's Cathedral parish, and the two churches share priests and administrative staff.
Perry Criscitelli is an American restaurant owner who is an alleged member of the Bonanno crime family. Criscitelli owns several restaurants and previously managed a popular city street festival.
Umbertos Clam House is an Italian seafood restaurant located at 132 Mulberry Street in Little Italy in Manhattan, New York City. Umbertos became known for its "tasty dishes of calamari, scungilli, and mussels", but initially became prominent, weeks after opening, for being the site of the murder of gangster Joe Gallo. The restaurant was founded and is owned by members of the Ianniello family.
The first Brooklyn Chinatown, was originally established in the Sunset Park area of the New York City borough of Brooklyn. It is one of the largest and fastest growing ethnic Chinese enclaves outside of Asia, as well as within New York City itself. Because this Chinatown is rapidly evolving into an enclave predominantly of Fuzhou immigrants from Fujian Province in China, it is now increasingly common to refer to it as the Little Fuzhou or Fuzhou Town of the Western Hemisphere; as well as the largest Fuzhou enclave of New York City.
Chinatowns are enclaves of Chinese people outside of China. The first Chinatown in the United States was San Francisco's Chinatown in 1848, and many other Chinatowns were established in the 19th century by the Chinese diaspora on the West Coast. By 1875, Chinatowns had emerged in eastern cities such as New York City, Boston, Pittsburgh, and Philadelphia. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 barred Chinese immigration to the United States, but the Magnuson Act of 1943 repealed it, and the population of Chinatowns began to rise again.
Elizabeth Street is a street in Manhattan, New York City, which runs north-south parallel to and west of the Bowery. The street is a popular shopping strip in Lower Manhattan's Nolita neighborhood.
New York City has the largest population of Italian Americans in the United States as well as North America, many of whom inhabit ethnic enclaves in Brooklyn, the Bronx, Manhattan, Queens, and Staten Island. New York is home to the third largest Italian population outside of Italy, behind Buenos Aires, Argentina (first) and São Paulo, Brazil (second). Over 2.6 million Italians and Italian-Americans live in the greater New York metro area, with about 800,000 living within one of the five New York City boroughs. This makes Italian Americans the largest ethnic group in the New York metro area.
Giglio Society of East Harlem is a non profit Italian-American society located in East Harlem, Manhattan, New York City, that sponsors an annual feast honoring their patron saint, Saint Anthony.
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