Little Italy | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Sign aboveMulberry Street atBroome Street | |
 Location in New York City | |
| Coordinates:40°43′08″N73°59′49″W / 40.719°N 73.997°W /40.719; -73.997 | |
| Country |  United States |
| State |  New York |
| City | New York City |
| Borough | Manhattan |
| Community District | Manhattan 3[1] |
| ZIP Code | 10013 |
| Area codes | 212, 332, 646, and917 |
Chinatown and Little Italy Historic District | |
| NRHP reference No. | 10000012 |
| Added to NRHP | February 12, 2010 |
Little Italy (Italian:Piccola Italia) is a neighborhood inLower Manhattan inNew York City, once known for itsItalian American population.[2] It is bounded on the west byTribeca andSoho, on the south byChinatown, on the east by theBowery andLower East Side, and on the north byNolita.
At its largest, Little Italy used to occupy a space in lower Manhattan bound byLafayette Street to the west andBowery to the east,Kenmare Street to the north andWorth Street to the south.[3] It is now only five blocks onMulberry Street north of Canal St.[4] Little Italy originated at Mulberry Bend south of Canal, in what had formerly been theFive Points area but is now the heart of Chinatown.Jacob Riis described Mulberry Bend as "the foul core of New York's slums".[5] During this time period "Immigrants of the late 19th century usually settled in ethnic neighborhoods".[6] Therefore, the "mass immigration from Italy during the 1880s"[7] 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".[8]
Bill Tonelli fromNew York magazine said, "Once, Little Italy was like an insularNeapolitan village re-created on these shores, with its own language, customs, and financial and cultural institutions."[5] Little Italy was not the largest Italian neighborhood in New York City, asEast Harlem (orItalian Harlem) had a larger Italian population. Tonelli said that Little Italy "was perhaps the city's poorest Italian neighborhood".[5]
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.[5] Tonelli said that it meant "that residents began moving out to more spacious digs almost as soon as they arrived".[5] 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.[7]
AfterWorld War II, many residents of theLower East Side began moving toBrooklyn,Staten Island, easternLong Island,Westchester andNew Jersey. Chinese immigrants became an increased presence after theU.S. Immigration Act of 1965 removed immigration restrictions, and theManhattan 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."[5]
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."[5] After theSeptember 11 attacks in 2001, areas below Houston Street were cut off for the rest of the fall of 2001. TheSan Gennaro feast, scheduled for September 13, was postponed. Business from theFinancial District dropped severely, due to the closure ofPark Row, which connected Chinatown and theCivic 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".[5]
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 affordSoho, and a few remaining real live Italians."[5] This sentiment has also been echoed by Italian culture and heritage websiteItalianAware. 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.[9]
In 2010, Little Italy andChinatown were listed in a singlehistoric district on theNational Register of Historic Places.[10] Little Italy, by this point, was shrinking rapidly.[4]
Foods and traditions that were invented in Little Italy includesausage and peppers and therainbow cookie.[citation needed] In addition, the Italian-American Christmas Eve tradition of theFeast of the Seven Fishes originated in Little Italy back in the late 1800s.[11]
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.[12]
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 betweenCanal andKenmare Streets had taken on a feel of Chinatown, though locals continue to refer to the area (including Nolita) as Little Italy.[13]
As of the2000 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 ofNew York magazine contrasted Little Italy with theManhattan Chinatown; in 2000, of the residents of the portions of Chinatown south of Grand Street, 81% were of Chinese origins.[5]
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 theLower 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 fromMilan."[14] 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."[14]
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.[15]
Little Italy was home to dozens of restaurants that serve authentic Italian cuisine, but between March 2013 and March 2014, eight eateries closed down.[16]
Since 2004,Sorrento Lactalis funds neighborhood cultural events in Little Italy.[5]
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'sLittle Italy to celebrateSan Gennaro as the Patron Saint ofNaples. TheFeast of San Gennaro is a large street fair, lasting 11 days, that takes place every September along Mulberry Street between Houston and Canal Streets.[17]
The festival is an annual celebration ofItalian culture and theItalian-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, andChristmas events.[5]
Richard Alba, a sociologist and professor atUniversity at Albany, SUNY, said, "The fascinating part here is the way in which ethnic tourism—not only byItalian Americans but by people who want to see an authentic urban village—keeps these neighborhoods going."[14]
Little Italy was also home toAlleva Dairy, the oldest cheese shop in the United States. The store was founded in 1892 and was located onGrand Street[18] until March 2023, when it closed its Little Italy location and announced a move toLyndhurst, New Jersey.[19]
Little Italy residents have seen organized crime since the early 20th century. Powerful members of theItalian Mafia have operated inLittle Italy.
Little Italy is the locale of the fictionalCorleone family depicted in the novelThe Godfather and thefilm trilogy based on it. It is also the setting for theMartin Scorsese filmMean Streets (1973), starringHarvey Keitel andRobert De Niro, the latter of whom also grew up in the neighborhood,[25] and theLuc Besson filmLéon: The Professional (1994), starringJean Reno,Gary Oldman, andNatalie Portman.[26] It is also depicted in the series finale ofThe Sopranos, titled "Made in America", where a character walks down a block and finds himself in Chinatown, demonstrating how Little Italy has shrunk.[27]
Other Italian American neighborhoods in New York City include:
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