little italy

[snife2005]

I am doing a project on Little Italy about how it has shrunk in recent years and most Italians have moved out. I was wondering why this was and if the expanding Chinatown causes any conflict between the two areas. Thanks for any of your thoughts on this.

[lofter1]

One reason: The huge numbers of immigrants from China > NYC.

Another reason: Back in the early 90's Gotti lost control of his area centered on Mulberry St. (the FBI bugged his social club on Mulberry between Prince / Spring -- it's now a shoe store next to the MET grocery store). While Gotti's boys controlled the area none of the storefronts changed for years. But after Gotti was out the entire area began to change (and was labeled with the horrifying Real Estate moniker of "NoLiTa").

Gone are the days when the Gotti boys would commandeer the intersection at Spring / Mulberry on the 4th of July and put on their own hilarious fireworks show. Some of the old-timers and long-term residents still remain in the area, but many have either died or have moved off to Jersey, Florida or other areas outside of NYC.

FYI: The area now known as Little Italy was originally an Irish neighborhood (hence the original Old St. Patick's (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Patrick%27s_Old_Cathedral%2C_New_York) Cathedral on Mott / Prince -- where the saga goes that the brick wall around the church's graveyard was constructed in the late 1800's to keep the newly-arrived Italians from sleeping atop the graves).

This neighborhood will continue to change.

Nothing in NYC stays the same forever.

[snife2005]

Thanks for that information. It will come in useful. Is this however the main reason for Italians moving out or are people feeling threatened by the mass influx of Chinese immigrants, or just moving out to larger, more spacious homes in the suburbs due to increased affluence amongst the Italian community?

[brianac]

In Little Italy, a Former Bank Will Now Hold Immigrants’ Memories

By VINCENT M. MALLOZZI (http://query.nytimes.com/search/query?ppds=bylL&v1=VINCENT M. MALLOZZI&fdq=19960101&td=sysdate&sort=newest&ac=VINCENT M. MALLOZZI&inline=nyt-per)
Published: September 9, 2008

The echoes of Italian accents filled the old bank at 155 Mulberry Street.
Joseph V. Scelsa, standing in front of a teller’s window marked “Steamship Tickets” on a recent afternoon, held a receipt in his hand dated Dec. 3, 1894, that had belonged to a man named Raffaele Alonzo, who had paid $30 for a third-class ticket that had taken him to New York from Naples, Italy.

“He probably sat in steerage,” said Dr. Scelsa, a sociologist and professor emeritus at Queens College (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/q/queens_college/index.html?inline=nyt-org). “In those days, $30 was a lot of money.”

Those days will be celebrated beginning on Tuesday at the opening of the newly relocated Italian American Museum, at the site of what was once Banca Stabile, a bank used by Italian immigrants who flocked to Lower Manhattan in search of a better life. The bank operated from 1882 to 1932, when the area that would become known as Little Italy had one of the largest populations of Italian-Americans in the United States.

That area today has shrunk to little more than a tourist attraction. Dr. Scelsa estimates that fewer than 1,000 Italian-Americans live in Little Italy, which is dwarfed by sprawling Chinatown.

“This location is significant because the Stabile family was the cornerstone of this community,” said Dr. Scelsa, who is also the museum’s president. “Their bank was the financial engine that ran everything in this area.”

Dr. Scelsa found much of that evidence — and then some — in the bank’s vault, which contained artifacts like bankbooks filled with handwritten transactions, Italian and American money, steamship luggage tags from a variety of passenger lines, cablegrams and a small revolver.

“I have no idea why the gun was in there,” said Dr. Scelsa, as he passed other tellers’ windows marked “Drafts-Money Orders,” “Foreign Exchange” and “Paying-Receiving.”

The vault’s contents revealed that the neighborhood elite also banked with the Stabiles. A ledger card shows that Antonio Ferrara, who in 1892 founded the pastry shop that is still in business across the street, closed his account on Jan. 31, 1931, taking his $211,131 fortune with him.

Before that, a telegraphic receipt from April 3, 1920, shows that Mr. Ferrara wired 75,000 lire from Banca Stabile to the Hotel Londres in Naples to reserve a vacation room there. Two years later, Mr. Ferrara bought two first-class steamship tickets from New York to Naples for a total of $110.

“It was very rare that people traveled first class in those days,” said Maria T. Fosco, a member of the museum’s board who has been researching the history of Little Italy. “Obviously, Mr. Ferrara was doing quite well.”

Ms. Fosco said that at its peak, the neighborhood was a cluster of enclaves within an enclave, with various streets representing various regions of the old country.

“Most people who lived on Mulberry Street were from Naples,” she explained. “Those who lived on Elizabeth Street were from Sicily, those from Mott Street were from Calabria, and anyone north of Broome Street was from Bari.

“So if a boy from Mulberry Street married a girl from Elizabeth Street,” Ms. Fosco said with a grin, “that was considered a mixed marriage.”

On Thursday, Dr. Scelsa and Ms. Fosco were still putting items in glass display cases and framing pictures of weddings, churches, parades and steamships. They had already put on display several of the early machines used by the bank in the early part of the 20th century, including a Brandt automatic cashier, a Paymaster money order writer, a Burroughs adding machine and a Royal typewriter.

On Friday, a new door was installed on the Mulberry Street side of the building, and another around the corner, on the Grand Street side.

The museum was planning to open two days before the start of the annual San Gennaro Festival on Thursday. Dr. Scelsa and Ms. Fosco said they were hoping the festival would bring droves of Italian-Americans and others eager to learn about the cultural heritage of Italy and some of its favorite sons, including those of Italian descent raised well beyond the boundaries of the old neighborhood, men like William A. Paca, a representative of Maryland who signed the Declaration of Independence; and A. P. Giannini, born in San Jose, Calif., who became the founder of Bank of America.

Dr. Scelsa said that $9.4 million had been raised for the museum from a combination of city and state grants, as well as contributions from trustees of the museum.

“It’s a pretty fascinating place,” said Dr. Jerome Stabile III, 76, a retired surgeon whose family owned the Banca Stabile building and two adjoining properties, at 151 and 153 Mulberry, before selling them to the museum in June for more than $9 million. After the bank closed in 1932, the Stabile family used the bank building to run its real estate business.

The three lots, at the corner of Grand Street, will eventually be used to expand the museum to a planned 10,000 square feet. The museum, which first opened in June 2001, was originally situated in a Midtown office building on West 44th Street, until closing in June for the relocation.

“Everything in there, from the marble floors to the tellers’ cages and the gold writing on them, are original,” said Dr. Stabile, a great-grandson of Francesco Rosario Stabile, the bank’s founder. “I never removed anything from the bank or its vault because I had hoped all along that the space would one day be used as something more significant than just a restaurant or some other store.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/09/nyregion/09italian.html?ref=nyregion

Copyright 2008 (http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/help/copyright.html) The New York Times Company (http://www.nytco.com/)

[Triborough]

What is basically there now is for tourists.

[Schadenfrau]

Thanks for that information. It will come in useful. Is this however the main reason for Italians moving out or are people feeling threatened by the mass influx of Chinese immigrants, or just moving out to larger, more spacious homes in the suburbs due to increased affluence amongst the Italian community?

Have you tried researching this subject at your local library? The answers you're receive here won't be strong enough to base a report on.

For the record, the majority of Italians moved out of Little Italy decades ago, I seriously doubt it had anything to do with being "threatened" by Chinese immigrants, and currently, apartments in Little Italy cost more than most large, spacious homes in the suburbs. The reality of this story differs greatly from the narrative you seem to have focused on.

[brianac]

A big chunk of history at Little Italy museum

BY CAT CONTIGUGLIA and CHRISTINA BOYLE
DAILY NEWS WRITERS
Thursday, October 9th 2008, 12:59 AM

New York (http://www.nydailynews.com/topics/New+York)'s Italian-Americans now have a place to call home in the heart of the neighborhood where their ancestors' first set foot.

A museum dedicated to telling the experiences of the immigrants who arrived in Little Italy (http://www.nydailynews.com/topics/Italy) opened its doors Wednesday at the corner of Mulberry and Grand Sts.

Located inside the community's former bank, which operated from the 1880s to 1932 and was known as Banca Stabile (http://www.nydailynews.com/topics/Banca+Stabile), it will display exhibits and documents found in the building's storage basement and safe deposit boxes, including old passports, deeds and bankbooks.

"It gives you insight into the history of this area," museum curator Nancy Cataldi (http://www.nydailynews.com/topics/Nancy+Cataldi) said.

"It's very important because Little Italy has changed so much. There's nothing authentic over here anymore.

"At least you can give people the history of what it was like down here - give people a feeling of this area," she said.

The museum opening comes as the NYPD (http://www.nydailynews.com/topics/New+York+City+Police+Department) also celebrates Italian heritage with a concert at the Hammerstein Ballroom (http://www.nydailynews.com/topics/Hammerstein+Ballroom) on W. 34th St. tonight.

The Italian National Police (http://www.nydailynews.com/topics/Italian+National+Police) Band will perform, and proceeds go to the Columbia Association (http://www.nydailynews.com/topics/Columbia+Association), which provides grants and scholarships to Italian-American children.

cboyle@nydailynews.com (cboyle@nydailynews.com)

http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2008/10/08/2008-10-08_a_big_chunk_of_history_at_little_italy_m.html

© Copyright 2008 NYDailyNews.com

[TheFivePoints]

I recently took my family over there, and had a great meal at Giovanni's, the atmosphere was wonderful, I met nice people from all over the world. The meal was priced just right, the restaurants are all very good, they need to be to stay alive.

The tourist were open to all of our suggestions of what to do in the city, overall it is a shame that it has shrunk to the size it has become but you can not hault progress

[professionalx]

The story of Little Italy is mirrored in every ethnic neighborhood in the city. People move in, the next generation learns English, gets educated, moves on. Visit the Tenement Museum on Orchard Street if you really want to know about this. (http://www.tenement.org ) There's a church on Mott St, in the heart of the "old" part of Chinatown, where you can track the changes by reading on plaques the names of the parishoners who served as U.S. soldiers in the various wars of the last century. Or look at the 1939 WPA Guide to New York City, which describes many ethnic neighborhoods which I would love to visit... although my grandfather probably thought them something to avoid!

As for Little Italy, it exists only on the ground floor. My daughter is in kindergarten at PS 130 (Baxter St. between Grand & Hester), the very heart of Little Italy. The school was quite literally surrounded by the San Gennaro festival a few weeks ago, but she thinks that ""Little Italy" is called that because it is such a SMALL neighborhood - an island in Chinatown whose chief importance is gelato stand outside Ferrara's.

Some of her classmates are of European ethnicity - Italian, Irish, Jewish and even a Brit, some African-American or Latino but 90% are in fact ethnically Chinese - but silly kids, they all think that they are New Yorkers and Americans.

[justfabulouslyme]

There is nothing authentic about Little Italy anymore, save for (possibly) the gelato stand near Caffe' Sambuca.

It's very sad to me, as I grew up in an Italian American family and in fact my grandparents immigrated from Sicily to Little Italy during the turn of the century, but that's life. I would actually like to visit the bank which is mentioned in the article above. I had the chance to go to Ellis Island about a year ago, but I didn't go. Now I'm kicking myself for it because I'd love to see the names of my family members. I'm amazed at how much guts they had to get up and move.. and in fact, our family's story has gone full circle because next year I'm moving back to the "old country" to finish up my college education.

New York is ever changing, and we can't stop it. But for me, the nostalgia is always there.

[lofter1]

The bank (now museum) was more authentic a few years ago. But now it looks more presentable.

[TheFivePoints]

Right across the street from the bank on the corner is the Italian Food Center 186 Grand Street....the pizza is way to expensive but you can get a decent sandwich or hero for a good price.
Also there are some booths and tables where you can just sit and enjoy the areea.

[TheFivePoints]

New York is ever changing, and we can't stop it. But for me, the nostalgia is always there.

Change is good sometimes, all to often we look at things all in all the wrong ways.
I wouldn't use the word gentrification when thinking about little italy now. It has become smaller because the italians that once lived there wanted a better life for their famalies. The exodus was for reasons of a better life. The influx declined and so goe's the pool.
Hopefully at its present size it can thrive and maybe be reborn under these tough financial times.
It is sad though to see how small it has become.

[lofter1]

The prosciutto bread at the Food Center is delicious.

[TheFivePoints]

I did not care for the young women who was at the register the other day, I have to admit she was very hot she was yapping on her cell phone the whole time she was helping customers. The service at that place was pretty bad but the food is good.

[lofter1]

kids these days :confused:

[justfabulouslyme]

The prosciutto bread at the Food Center is delicious.

Heh, we always called in lard bread!

If you want good prosciutto bread, you have to go to the Bronx...

[Ninjahedge]

Hoboken has soe nice places, as well as some areas in the 'burbs and down the shore.

Just like German food, Italian is migrating. The Germans all moved out to PA and took the Shnitzel with them, I wonder where the Italians will stay....

[TheFivePoints]

I have family out in PA and let me tell you there are no good italian places to eat.
I mean the best place they have is the Olive Garden.....awful italian food....

[Ninjahedge]

I have family out in PA and let me tell you there are no good italian places to eat.
I mean the best place they have is the Olive Garden.....awful italian food....


It's "italian" food.

You know, if Pizza Hut can make Pasta..........

[TheFivePoints]

I remember eating pizza hut as a kid and it was pretty good, but then again I was a kid, that stuff they serve there should be outlawed its terrible. I wouldn't even call it pizza...

[justfabulouslyme]

Well, don't be too hard on Pizza Hut. Take it for what it is- Americanized pizza. I'm a huge pizza connoisseur and even I can enjoy a stuffed crust pizza every now and then!! :D

[Ninjahedge]

Well, don't be too hard on Pizza Hut. Take it for what it is- Americanized pizza. I'm a huge pizza connoisseur and even I can enjoy a stuffed crust pizza every now and then!! :D

Well, meh.

I just can't think of it as PIZZA pizza. It is about as authentic as Elios Frozen! (And I used to LOVE that as a kid!)

But we like a lot of things when we are younger w/o knowing the real thing. "Chow Mein" would be a great example.

Pass the La Choy!!! (bleh!)

[.pulchritudinous.]

I have family out in PA and let me tell you there are no good italian places to eat.
I mean the best place they have is the Olive Garden.....awful italian food....

Unless you have family in all of PA, then you are seriously mistaken. I'm from central Pennsylvania and we have excellent Italian food. I have never even been to the Olive Garden and I could argue this.

[Ninjahedge]

Unless you have family in all of PA, then you are seriously mistaken. I'm from central Pennsylvania and we have excellent Italian food. I have never even been to the Olive Garden and I could argue this.


Have you had NYC Italian yet?

And I do not mean Tutta Pasta! ;)

There may be a few restaurants out in PA that serve decent food, but, in general, I have found that any true ethnicity to be sorely lacking outside the major city centers.

Pizza would be a good earmark. When you see more Dominoes and Pizza Hut franchises than any other pizza parlor, you are probably not in Italian country (hell, my home town of little over 20K people had FIVE different pizzerias! They all had their own strengths. But as for Chinese food? "Wok Yew" would be stretching it!).

Living in the city, I can still see pockets of good stuff when I go home, or visit peopel in connecticut, central jersey or other areas, but I am more and more aware of the fact that I knew very little about this stuff when I went to college.

Lucky for me, I eat just about everything or I would have missed out on some really good native foods!

[.pulchritudinous.]

I live in an area where the majority is Pennsylvania dutch. The area has about 3K people, and we have around 5 "pizzerias" as well. I would have to say that one restaurant, where the family moved from New York City to my town, has great Italian food.

I never said all of Pennsylvania has great Italian food, and my apologies if you thought that. I was just stating that you can't say ALL Pennsylvania-Italian food is gross, because the majority of the Italians we have in our area, their families or they themselves, have moved from New York City.

[Ninjahedge]

Pulch, I think you are getting the idea. Most times statements like that are made here to apply to the general area, not to individual discrepancies.

Just like certain areas of the city are tagged with certain labels (Chelsea/West village maybe?) that does not mean there are rainbows everywhere! ;)

Maybe five points should have said there aren't any places to eat that can be found easily, or some other diffusing statement. Me not being from PA, I did not feel insulted by that and I knew what he meant, that it is hard to find things like genuine in rural PA!

But, like you said, that is not what he said. Sometimes a harmless sounding generalization can sound a lot more harsh to one who is addressed by that generalization.

But enough about that. Lets get back to OT! I believe I have already said this, but I think you can find much better Italian in Brooklyn than you can in Little Italy. (You could also find it down the NJ shore, but I do not think the subway makes it that far.....yet. ;))

[justfabulouslyme]

Or you could just hitch a ride in my suitcase when I move to Italy in 8 months.

Next stop, Sicily! Who's coming? :D

[Hof]

I used to live in the heart of Little Italy--Thompson St near Spring--for six years back in the late '60s/early '70s. At that time, the area was heavily Italian, but it was mostly older people, ethnic Italians who were residents since WW II. The younger generation was moving on and moving out and were living Uptown or over in Jersey, but they still had strong ties to the neighborhood through their businesses and family and friend connections, so many of the youngsters would show up each day and fill the streets with life. And they would all be gone by nightfall.

There was a mobbed-up Social Club that had been in the basement of my apartment building since the 1920s, there were several really good bakeries and delis on the block, there were shoe repair stores, meat markets, restaurants, pizza stands and small bodegas within a five minute stroll from my place, and nearly everybody displayed the tricolor flag of Italy in their windows.
I used to think that being an Italian flagmaker must be a hell of a business...

But the single most striking image that I recall was the large number of really old folks in the neighborhood. You'd see them playing chess at the concrete chessboards that encircled the playground, you'd pass them on the sidewalks as they shuffled off to church or to the market in their black dresses, you'd see them sitting on their stoops, scoping the passing street life with a glass of grappa; a block over on Sullivan or down by Houston there would always be street fairs or church-oriented functions organized by the old timers that constantly changed my part of The Village into a slice of Sicily whenever a Holy Day or some other holiday came around on the calendar.

Before I left the block in '71, I had begun to notice the changes. More and more of the Italian-themed stores were closing, fewer and fewer of the old folks were on the streets. A lot of them were either dying off or moving in with their kids in Jersey or Westchester, and a lot more Oriental faces were showing up on the street. Many of the people whom I had become friendly with were giving up on the neighborhood and were going elsewhere, heavily diluting the Italian influence that I had become so used to.
At about the time I was moving to Brooklyn, the Social Club closed--it had become a Ferragamo shoe outlet. I always thought that was SO ironic...

It all started changing, I think, when the area was renamed SoHo.

In the Summer of '07, my last trip to NY, I took the Subway to the Spring St station and did a walkaround in my old neighborhood. My old apartment, once almost entirely occupied by Italian families is now a Yuppified condo and I noticed only two Italian sounding names on the mailbox in the lobby. The Social Club/Ferragamo has become a Spanish-owned convenience store.
Though the area is still loaded with Italian restaurants, there is virtually no Italian FEEL to the place anymore. Actually, Chinatown has oozed northward and has adapted the vanishing Italian character that so defined the zone. Many of the small stores now have Oriental owners.

The warehouse district to the east is gentrified into an upscaled Cute Shop area, old folks are nonexistant at the chess tables and there was hardly an Italian flag anywhere. I left wondering if the street Festivals are still as numerous as they once were-- and I couldn't find a decent cannoli outlet anywhere.

Alas, Little Italy is no more, I concluded. They are all gone now, all the Mommas and Papas, all the shoe stores where you could watch the Sicilian cobbler fix soles in his shop window, all the wiseguys in their shiny suits--and the special character that pervaded so much of The South Village has encamped for places elsewhere.

New York will never stop changing.

[Fabrizio]

It is interesting to note that while NYC has lost Little Italy, the city over all, actually has a much more Italian feel today: all of the chic restaurants, the coffee bars, food items, designer boutiques, Italian design etc.

Once apon a time it was all about things French, but Italy and the Italian lifestyle has been a major influence on NYC in the last 15 years or so.

[ablarc]

New York will never stop changing.
I guess that's the one thing about it that will never change.

[Ninjahedge]

And people will never stop complaining about it either!!! ;)





(guilty)

[NYatKNIGHT]

While what once was Little Italy is now all but vanished from the South Village, as a resident I can still see some remnants. I live near the St. Anthony's church on Sullivan which seems to be the heart of what is left of the Italian neighborhood. Every Sunday old Italians still walk to church in their Sunday best. They still do sit together on benches or on their stoops on Thompson and Sullivan speaking Italian, and I compete with Italian-speaking ladies for the good washers and dryers at the laundromat. There is the annual Feast of St. Anthony, with priests and parishoners parading the statue through the streets accompanied by a brass band. There is still an Italian meat market, bakery, and cheese shop not to mention several restaurants and gelato shops.

There are also quite a few French restaurants in the neighborhood. On Bastille Day MacDougal Street is closed for festivities.

When the World Cup was between France and Italy, this part of the city was a great place to watch the game. French and Italian flags seemed to compete for space throughout the neighborhood.

It may not be what it used to be, but fortunately the area still has a touch of ethnic flavor.

[Ninjahedge]

The difficulty lies in the fact that immigration comes in waves. Italian, Irish, German, Polish, Russian, Chinese.

You get so much from the latest wave, but you also lose some of what was there before. I love Chinatown, but I miss the mythos of "little Italy" that I never truly got to see.

I guess the most dificult thing is preserving the past and history WITHOUT forbidding and crippling change and development.



Side question. I know that the latest wave (Chinese) have not exactly had the best of conditions to learn from, but was Little Italy that dirty in its influx? Is this a phase? And if it is, how can a place like Chinatown be encouraged to develop into something comparable to LI in its heyday? (Hay day?). It has so much to offer, but it is still stuck in streets you are afraid to get near the gutterwater.....



Manhattan just isn't big enough to hold the world, but it is impressive how much you can find if you start looking!

[Bronxbombers]

I will take a tour of little italy.

[lofter1]

It's a small area and is easily walkable. The traditional "boundaries" (which are no longer solid, but blend into Chinatown, NoLIta, The Bowery and SoHo) :

Lafayette Street (west) <> East Houston Street (north) <> The Bowery (east) <> Hester Street (south)

[Schadenfrau]

I will take a tour of little italy.

Enjoy the block!

[brianac]

New York’s Little Italy, Littler by the Year

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2011/02/22/nyregion/LITTLEITALY1/LITTLEITALY1-articleLarge.jpg Eddie Hausner/The New York Times
Grand Street at Mott Street in 1974. The proprietors of Di Palo’s, in business since 1903, have worked to make it a destination as Little Italy has changed.

By SAM ROBERTS (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/r/sam_roberts/index.html?inline=nyt-per)

Published: February 21, 2011

In 1950, nearly half of the more than 10,000 New Yorkers living in the heart of Little Italy identified as Italian-American. The narrow streets teemed with children and resonated with melodic exchanges in Italian among the one in five residents born in Italy and their second- and third-generation neighbors.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2011/02/22/nyregion/littleitaly-a/littleitaly-a-popup.jpgA. J. Mast for The New York Times
The Chinatown and Little Italy Historic District, designated last year by the Park Service, has no geographic distinction between the neighborhoods.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2011/02/22/nyregion/LITTLEITALY2/LITTLEITALY2-popup.jpgFred R. Conrad/The New York Times
Luigi Di Palo, the owner of Di Palo’s with his sister Marie and his brother Salvatore, in the background. Fifth-generation family members work in the store and sell goods online.

By 2000, the census found that the Italian-American population had dwindled to 6 percent. Only 44 were Italian-born, compared with 2,149 a half-century earlier.

A census survey released in December determined that the proportion of Italian-Americans among the 8,600 residents in the same two-dozen-square-block area of Lower Manhattan had shrunk to about 5 percent.

And, incredibly, the census could not find a single resident who had been born in Italy.

Little Italy is becoming Littler Italy. The encroachment that began decades ago as Chinatown bulged north, SoHo expanded from the west, and other tracts were rebranded more fashionably as NoLIta (for north of Little Italy) and NoHo seems almost complete.

The Little Italy that was once the heart of Italian-American life in the city exists mostly as a nostalgic memory or in the minds of tourists who still make it a must-see on their New York itinerary.

The only streets that really feel like they belong to Little Italy, Mulberry and Grand, are still crammed with venerable Italian restaurants and shops. But Chinese-language advertisements for reflexology spas pepper the sidewalk, a poster announces the Lunar New Year celebration, and a “for rent” sign hangs on a new seven-story condominium building at 182 Mulberry.

The Gambino crime family (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/g/gambino_crime_family/index.html?inline=nyt-per)’s old Ravenite social club at 247 Mulberry is now a shoe and handbag boutique. As recently as 2005, Vincent Gigante (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/g/vincent_gigante/index.html?inline=nyt-per), the 77-year-old boss of the Genovese crime family, roamed the neighborhood in a bathrobe and slippers feigning mental illness to avoid prosecution. Last month, more than 100 reputed members of mob families were charged with federal crimes; none lived in Little Italy.

Sambuca’s Café, at 105 Mulberry Street, is listed by Yelp (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/companies/yelp/index.html?inline=nyt-org), the food-oriented Web site, as being in Chinatown — a particularly humiliating geographic transgression because it is owned by the president of the Little Italy Merchants Association (http://www.littleitalynyconline.com/).

Last year, the National Park Service (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/n/national_park_service/index.html?inline=nyt-org) designated a Chinatown and Little Italy Historic District (http://www.cr.nps.gov/nr/feature/asia/2010/chinatown_little_italy_hd.htm) with no geographic distinction between the neighborhoods. The two neighborhoods have begun organizing a Marco Polo (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/p/marco_polo/index.html?inline=nyt-per) Day and an East Meets West Christmas Parade.

City Hall will soon further erase the boundaries.

Following the lead of three local community boards, the City Planning Commission (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/c/city_planning_commission/index.html?inline=nyt-org) is expected in March to approve the creation of a Chinatown Business Improvement District, which would engulf all but about two square blocks of a haven that once spanned almost 50 square blocks and had the largest concentration of Italian immigrants in the United States.

“It’s really all Chinatown now,” said John A. Zaccaro Sr., owner of the Little Italy real estate company, founded by his father in 1935.

Even the Feast of San Gennaro (http://www.sangennaro.org/), which still draws giant crowds to Mulberry Street, may be abbreviated in size this year at the behest of inconvenienced NoLIta merchants.

The number of residents of Italian descent in the neighborhood has been declining since the 1960s, as immigration (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/i/immigration_and_refugees/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier) from Italy ebbed and Italian-Americans prospered and moved to other parts of the city and to the suburbs.

“When the Italians made money they moved to Queens and New Jersey, they sold to the Chinese, who are now selling to the Vietnamese and Malaysians,” said Ernest Lepore, 46, who, with his brother and mother, owns Ferrara, an espresso and pastry shop his family opened 119 years ago.

Still, about 30 Italian-American babies born in the neighborhood are baptized at the Church of the Most Precious Blood on Baxter Street every year. And some residents cling to a neighborhood that is rich in history and culture.

Natalie Diaz’s children are the fifth generation of a family that arrived on Ellis Island from Naples in 1916. She still lives in the same gray five-story building on Mulberry Street above Il Piccolo Bufalo where she grew up. Ms. Diaz, who is 34, runs a group for parents of twins and triplets (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/health/diseasesconditionsandhealthtopics/multiple_births/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier). Her husband’s parents were Irish and Puerto Rican, and he works as a manager at her family’s restaurant in the neighborhood, La Mela.

“Little by little, everyone wants a little more, more space, and moves away,” Ms. Diaz said. “There are some families, mostly from my mom’s generation, who have held out. To be honest, though, I feel a really strong sense of tradition. I owe it to my ancestors. I feel that everything my family worked for from the time they got off the boat is here.”

Of the 8,600 residents counted by the census’s American Community Survey in the heart of Little Italy in 2009, nearly 4,400 were foreign-born. Of those, 89 percent were born in Asia. In 2009, a Korean immigrant won a tenor competition sponsored by the Little Italy Merchants Association. That same year, a Chinese immigrant, Margaret S. Chin, was elected to represent the district in the City Council.

Ms. Chin played a key role in galvanizing diverse factions to create the business improvement district, which reaches north from Chinatown with two arms that flank Mulberry Street and arc toward it from the middle of two parallel streets, Baxter and Mott.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2011/02/22/nyregion/LITTLEITALY3/LITTLEITALY3-popup.jpgJoshua Bright for The New York Times
Natalie Diaz, 34, with her children, Johnny and Anna, in the Mulberry Street Bar, which her family owns.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2011/02/22/nyregion/LITTLEITALY4/LITTLEITALY4-popup.jpgno credit.
Ms. Diaz in 1982 with her aunt Vivian Catenaccio at the family’s Mulberry Street food stand.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2011/02/22/nyregion/jp-littleitaly1/jp-littleitaly1-popup.jpgFred R. Conrad/The New York Times
Of the nearly 4,400 foreign-born residents of the heart of Little Italy who were counted in 2009, 89 percent were born in Asia.

“We opted out” of the district, said Ralph Tramontana, president of the Little Italy merchants’ group and owner of Sambuca’s Café. “We didn’t think there was a need for it, because through the merchants’ association we already do what a business improvement district does.”

“I told Chinatown businesses,” said David Louie, who helped push for the district, “ ‘You should look at Little Italy and follow their example — at 8:30 in the morning you can see them scrubbing down the sidewalks.’ ”

Cleanliness, quaintness and low crime have broadened the neighborhood’s appeal, which has driven up rents. Rent-controlled apartments are still home to some Italian-Americans, Mr. Zaccaro said, but market-rate residences cost vast sums more. An 800-square-foot one-bedroom in a six-story renovated building at 145 Mulberry was advertised recently for $4,200 a month. The owners of a two-bedroom co-op on Grand Street are asking $1.5 million.

Paolucci’s, a popular restaurant that opened on Mulberry in 1947, moved to Staten Island after the owner’s rent was raised in 2005 to $20,000 a month from $3,500, he said.

Still, other Little Italy landmarks have not only survived, but appear to be thriving thanks mostly to tourists and to what the author Nicholas Pileggi described decades ago as suburban “Saturday Italians” — the “prospering overweight sons of leaner immigrant fathers.”

Di Palo’s, an Italian specialty food store at 200 Grand Street, opened for business in 1903, a decade after the Alleva dairy at 188 Grand, which advertises itself as the nation’s oldest Italian cheese store and which, like Ferrara, opened in 1892. Fifth-generation family members work in all three stores, and all three also sell their products online.

In 1990, Lou Di Palo said, his ailing father handed the next generation the keys.

“We decided we’re going to take our business and go backwards — focus the way our grandparents and great-grandparents ran their operation: family-oriented, hands-on customer relations,” he said. “We’re going to cut your piece of cheese and slice your prosciutto. We’re still a neighborhood store, but we took the initiative to make our shop a destination.”

“It went from an immigrant store to an Italian-American store focused on authentic products of Italy,” Mr. Di Palo explained. “We don’t expect our customers to come on a daily basis. A great customer we’ll see once a week, a very good customer we’ll see once a month. People used to say to me, ‘You’re still here!’ I said, ‘As long as you keep coming, I’ll be here.’ ”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/22/nyregion/22littleitaly.html?pagewanted=1&ref=nyregion

[Fabrizio]

At the same time however, Manhattan is much more Italianized today than ever before: all those Italian brand boutiques on Madison and on 5th, Italian restaurants and pizzerie that are much closer to the cooking enjoyed in Italy, shops selling Italian design for the home, Italian food products, Eataly, etc and etc.

[Merry]

Italianamerican

As the New York Times reports that Little Italy is getting littler (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/22/nyregion/22littleitaly.html?_r=1) by the year, as Chinatown and "Nolita" encroach, and the number of Italian-American residents dwindles, take a look back at the way it was with Martin Scorsese's 1974 documentary film Italianamerican--in five parts on Youtube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tzKAlLb4iM).

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-auzQsZsMTTg/TVXET5dd3TI/AAAAAAAAMOM/n_mjmORNOcU/s320/screen-capture-7.jpg (http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-auzQsZsMTTg/TVXET5dd3TI/AAAAAAAAMOM/n_mjmORNOcU/s1600/screen-capture-7.jpg)
all images screenshots from the film

It's not only a wonderful record of an Italian-American couple (Scorsese's parents), it also provides a glimpse of Little Italy in the 1970s.

In shots mostly appearing in part two, Little Italy is a neighborhood where the streets are full of life. Fruit and vegetable peddlers sell their wares on the sidewalks where children play a game of sliding, belly-first, on sheets of cardboard. Barber poles spin and old men sit outside in chairs and on boxes to watch the human parade go by.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-YOEZv5jYdeg/TVW_hEPVXNI/AAAAAAAAMN0/he9xxzb3UhM/s320/screen-capture-4.jpg (http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-YOEZv5jYdeg/TVW_hEPVXNI/AAAAAAAAMN0/he9xxzb3UhM/s1600/screen-capture-4.jpg)

Catherine and Charles Scorsese tell stories about growing up in the neighborhood--about tough mothers who scrubbed the floors without complaint and fathers who worked in scaffolding, about stealing fruit from pushcarts and being a Shabbos goy.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-3Wp_cOot7mo/TVW_heF19II/AAAAAAAAMN8/L4GiRAqTXPI/s320/screen-capture-6.jpg (http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-3Wp_cOot7mo/TVW_heF19II/AAAAAAAAMN8/L4GiRAqTXPI/s1600/screen-capture-6.jpg)

In the beginning of part three (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gonQKFbtec&feature=related), Catherine Scorsese talks about what happened when the Italians first came to the neighborhood, when it was still Irish territory, and the cultures clashed. She says, in defense of the Irish, "It's just like everything else, you know, they were here first. Naturally, it's just like kids when they find something, and they find it and they have it, and then somebody comes along and wants it and they say, 'No, I found it first.' Right? ... But then, they sort of, everybody got together and they made one happy family. That's all."

I can't help but think about today's territory clash (http://vanishingnewyork.blogspot.com/2011/01/nolita-vs-feast.html) in Little Italy, between the Italian-Americans and the Nolitans. In all the reporting, I haven't heard one Nolitan express the empathy and understanding that Mrs. Scorsese did in the quote above.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-GpohXyWk36o/TVW_hw61b4I/AAAAAAAAMOE/jd1jzvCPrtc/s320/screen-capture-5.jpg (http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-GpohXyWk36o/TVW_hw61b4I/AAAAAAAAMOE/jd1jzvCPrtc/s1600/screen-capture-5.jpg)

http://vanishingnewyork.blogspot.com/2011/02/italianamerican.html

[Fabrizio]

What I mostly remember about Little Italy in the 1970's was the awful food. It was quite a collection of bad restaurants.

[lofter1]

Luna (http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/472024) :eek:

[Fabrizio]

I do like good old-style Italian-American food, but Luna was probably the worst restaurant I have ever been to.

It was atmospheric though ...and for that I'm sorry to hear it has closed.

[mariab]

Rocky's is good. Family run, although I haven't eaten there in years. Last year I was looking forward to it but it was on a Monday & they were closed. Cozy atmosphere. Can't wait to get back there again. Mulberry & Spring, I think.

[lofter1]

Rocky's is good. About as down home as you can get in this part of town.

[KenNYC]

I've mostly ended up at Il Cortile when going to Little Italy for dinner, the food is pretty good for the area. Although it's location is sort of on the fringe of what remains Little Italy...