Little Italy in the Big Apple
Little Italy is a neighborhood of Manhattan in New York. The great city got this nickname in the heydays of horseracing and gambling in the 1920s. An estimated 40,000 Italian immigrants came here in the late 19th century for a better life and lived in cramped tenement houses.
Founding of Little Italy
They started prospering in the new money spinning – and often losing – scenario. The memory of their country of origin haunted them and they succeeded in giving their new settlement a distinct Italian look. New visitors will observe evidence of this Italian nostalgia while walking down Little Italy’s narrow cobblestone streets and inhaling the pungent aroma of Italian cooking emanating from mostly family-owned small restaurants.
Traditional cooking
People change many of their inherited habits when they migrate to another faraway country, but some – like culinary preferences – stay stuck to their tradition. Little Italy and Chinatown, located close to each other, are an ample proof of longing for traditional cooking. Most Little Italy diners are now tourists from various countries.
Influence on Hollywood films
They come here not only to treat themselves with the best Italian food outside Italy but also to feel the excitement of dining and drinking at those places once frequented by legendary gangsters, some real but mostly made famous by those wonderful – and often disturbing – Hollywood films and novels of Mario Puzo and Harold Robbins. Many scenes of Francis Coppola’s masterpiece The Godfather were filmed in an old loft at Little Italy’s Mott Street.
Ambience of Little Italy
Mulberry Street is the heart of Little Italy. There was a time when Italians dominated this area. Many of them have since moved out to suburbs – probably having acquired affluence – and Chinatown is gradually encroaching into this area. But the neighborhood’s Italian ambience still persists. Visitors would still love to stop here for a glass of wine or a cool Cinzano cocktail and gorge on salamis, sausages and pasta chicken; or savor a tiramisu, a heavenly Venetian sweet delicacy.
Visual treat
There are many reasons for Little Italy to become one of the major tourist attractions of New York. Its buildings of the late 19th and early 20th centuries are a visual treat. They aren’t overtly spectacular and definitely not magnificent, but they have the grace and charm of a bygone era that people would love to cherish romantically. Most buildings have five or six floors adorned with ornamental cornices at the top. They may not have elevators but have ornate fire escapes. The occasional sightings of grotesque heads of animals that don’t gargle water any longer, and statues carved in stone and iron artworks that still look so beautiful.
Neighborhood shops
Glass fronted neighborhood stores blend harmoniously with old tenements. They sell varieties of Italian foods, meats and groceries. Gaining in popularity these days are different kinds of clothes. All aren’t necessarily Italian.
Important festival
The Feast of San Gennaro is Little Italy’s most important festival that starts in mid-September and lasts for nine days. Participants join it in gay abandon, dancing, drinking and devouring eclectic Italian delicacies. Don’t miss it if you happen to be in New York that time.
Hotels and restaurants
There are many hotels in the neighborhood that may not be exactly pocket-friendly, but good and comfortable. Restaurants are so good, so many and reasonably priced that you may like to have all your meals here.
Old World charm
There aren’t many Italian-Americans now to claim Little Italy as their home. But many visitors still come here to get mesmerized by its Old World charm.
