You rais-a da rents and ba-bing, weeze all moved to Joisey. What? You tink weeze all stooopid, Paisan?
Umber tow Clam House is where Carmine “Lillo” Galante got gunned down
It has been a mob hangout for years IMHO
The problem is that the Italian immigrants all died off and their descendants all moved to nicer neighborhoods (and eventually to the suburbs), leaving behind only a few restaurants and bakeries. The same thing happened to the traditionally Jewish part of the Lower East Side.
Well, some people think Olive Garden is great authentic Italian food.
Ethnic neighborhoods of many ethnic groups have faded away, as such groups assimilated and many of their members moved to the suburbs.
Someone correct me if I’m wrong, but, I’ve heard that Chinatowns in many cities have been preserved more as tourist attractions, than neighborhoods in which big numbers of ethnic Chinese still live. I’ve heard that many shopowners and restaurant owners in these Chinatowns don’t live in the Chinatowns anymore. Just what I’ve heard. The same may well be true of Little Italys in various cities.
We’ll always have Harlem :-)
Many of the Italian restaurants in Little Italy have Mexican’s cooking the food and waiting on tables. Many of the Italians who owned the restaurants there worked hard so their children could go to college and become upwardly mobile. My father used to go to Little Italy often to purchase Italian records. Those days like my dad are long gone.
I think the only way an ethnic ghetto can last is if it gets a regular pilgrimage from “the old country”, to reinforce the old ways and introduce the new generation to them.
Bring it back?
Italians need to have families of 6+ children again...
The Italian community in Los Angeles vanished decades ago. Many “Italian” restaurants here are owned by Middle- and Far Easterners and are staffed by Latinos. The Eastside Market just outside Chinatown is one that is owned by an Italian family, and they serve good food.
There is an iconic Sopranos episode toward the end of the series, they are in Little Italy on a foggy day, they walk a block or two the fog clears and they are in Chinatown already.
As long as Arthur Avenue in the Bronx exists, there will be a Little Italy
I grew up not far from the other Little Italy—Arthur Avenue in the Bronx. It was a huge mob stronghold that used to be the safest neighborhood in the Bronx. I mean, you could walk around the area at 2:00am and never, ever feel afraid. The old timers have died off, the younger generation have moved to the suburbs, and the neighborhood is now only about three square blocks compared to the entire area that it used to be. I have so many memories of how great the area used to be just like Manhattan’s Little Italy. I hate to say it, but when the mob moved out, things changed. And not for the better.
It honestly makes me wonder how Cajuns and coonasses keep their cultures ongoing and alive. I guess nobody else wants to go live in the swamps and near the bayous in the backwoods. It seems even a good many of the few who go to college, come back.
It’s an immigrant neighborhood - the Italians and Eastern European Jews took over the Lower East Side after the Irish, and now the Italians and Jews have gotten better off and moved away and the neighborhood is either Asian (mostly Chinese and Vietnamese).
Of course, there’s also a lot of prosperous younger New Yorkers of a variety of backgrounds, and there are some very fancy mixed-use buildings replacing the tenements and even the old housing projects.
No Ferrara's?
No Angelos?
Maybe I'll just stay home...
It’s a shame. Particularly will miss the Ristorante S.P.Q.R. Love the San Gennaro festival and the church. Seems that few successful things can last forever in their original form. America has too many lawyers.
Little Italy in nyc had been reduced to just a couple of city blocks 25+ years ago. This isn’t a news story.