Little Italy

Arthur Avenue, a Little Italy in the Bronx, New York

Little Italy is a general name for an ethnic enclave populated primarily by Italians or people of Italian ancestry, usually in an urban neighborhood. The concept of "Little Italy" holds many different aspects of the Italian culture. There are shops selling Italian goods as well as Italian restaurants lining the streets. A "Little Italy" strives essentially to have a version of the country of Italy placed in the middle of a big non-Italian city. This sort of enclave is often the result of periods of immigration in the past, during which people of the same culture settled together in certain areas. As cities modernized and grew, these areas became known for their ethnic associations, and towns like "Little Italy" blossomed, becoming the icons they are today.

List of Little Italys

United States

Little Italy, Manhattan, New York, ca.1900.

See also: List of Italian-American neighborhoods

• Several Little Italies exist in New York City, including:
  • Little Italy, Manhattan
  • Italian Harlem
    • Pleasant Avenue, East Harlem, Manhattan
  • Little Italy, The Bronx
  • Belmont, Bronx
  • Morris Park, Bronx
  • Country Club, Bronx
  • Pelham Bay, Bronx
  • Bensonhurst, Brooklyn
  • South Brooklyn
    • Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn
    • Cobble Hill, Brooklyn
  • Bay Ridge, Brooklyn
  • Dyker Heights, Brooklyn
  • Williamsburg, Brooklyn;
  • Howard Beach, Queens
  • Ozone Park, Queens
  • Astoria, Queens
  • Middle Village, Queens
  • Rosebank, Staten Island
  • Many Staten Island neighborhoods (44% of Borough Residents claim Italian ancestry)
• Little Italy, Chicago, in Illinois
  • Elmwood Park, Illinois
  • Melrose Park, Illinois
  • Norridge, Illinois
  • Berwyn, Illinois
  • Grand Ave, Chicago
• Little Italy, Altoona, in Pennsylvania
• Little Italy, Arkansas
• Little Italy, Baltimore, in Maryland
• North End, Boston, in Massachusetts
• Little Italy, Bridgeport, in Connecticut
• Franklin Avenue in Hartford, Connecticut
• Little Italy, Buffalo, in New York
• Little Italy, Rochester - Gates Ny - Lyell Ave & Spencerport Rd
• Little Italy, Cleveland, in Ohio
• Little Italy, Connellsville, in Pennsylvania
• Little Italy in Erie, Pennsylvania, an area centered on West 18th Street between Sassafras and Liberty Streets.
• Little Italy, Kansas City, Missouri – Now defunct and mainly inhabited by South East Asian migrants.
• Little Italy, Los Angeles – the site of the former neighborhood includes the Italian American Museum of Los Angeles
• Wooster Square, in New Haven, Connecticut
• East Haven, Connecticut (40% of residents claim Italian ancestry)
• Little Italy, Omaha, in Nebraska
• The Village, Jersey City in Jersey City, New Jersey
• Little Italy, Paterson, in Paterson, New Jersey
• South Trenton, in Trenton, New Jersey
• South Philadelphia in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
• Federal Hill in Providence, Rhode Island
• North Providence, Rhode Island (small town with high number of Italians; about the size of most Little Italies in big cities).
• The Hill Little Italy in St. Louis, Missouri
• Little Italy, San Diego, California
• North Beach, San Francisco, in California
• Little Italy, Schenectady, in New York
• South End, Springfield, in Massachusetts
• Little Italy, Syracuse, in New York
• Little Italy, Waterbury, in Connecticut
• Little Italy, Clay County, West Virginia
• Little Italy, Randolph County, West Virginia
• Little Italy, Wilmington, in Delaware
• Brier Hill in Youngstown, Ohio

Other Italian neighborhoods

Some Italian neighborhoods may have other names, but are colloquially referred to as "Little Italy," including:

References

Further reading

• Buzzelli, Michael (2001). "From Little Britain to Little Italy: an urban ethnic landscape study in Toronto". Journal of Historical Geography. 27 (4): 573–587. doi:10.1006/jhge.2001.0355.
• Frunza, Bogdana Simina. Streetscape and Ethnicity: New York's Mulberry Street and the Redefinition of the Italian American Ethnic Identity (ProQuest, 2008)
• Gabaccia, Donna R. (2007). "Inventing 'Little Italy'". Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era. 6 (1): 7–41. JSTOR 25144462.
• Gabaccia, Donna R. (2006). "Global Geography of 'Little Italy': Italian Neighbourhoods in Comparative Perspective" (PDF). Modern Italy. 11 (1): 9–24. doi:10.1080/13532940500489510.
• Harney, Robert F. "Toronto's Little Italy, 1885-1945." in Robert F. Harney and J. Vincenza Scarpaci, eds. Little Italies in North America (1981): 41-62.
• Immerso, Michael. Newark's little Italy: The vanished first ward (Rutgers University Press, 1999).
• Juliani, Richard N. Building Little Italy: Philadelphia's Italians Before Mass Migration (Penn State Press, 2005)
• Pozzetta, George E. "The Mulberry District of New York City: The Years before World War One." in Robert F. Harney and J. Vincenza Scarpaci, eds. Little Italies in North America (Toronto: The Multicultural History Society of Ontario, 1979) pp: 7-40.
• Sandler, Gilbert. The Neighborhood: The Story of Baltimore's Little Italy (Bodine & Associates, 1974).
• Worrall, Janet E. (2004). "The impact of the Ku Klux Klan and prohibition on Denver's little Italy". Journal of the West. 43 (4): 32–40.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Little Italys.

• The Hill, St. Louis, Missouri's "Little Italy"
• New York City's Little Italy