Italian neighborhoods in North America

[Docere]

"Little Italies" and other urban Italian neighborhoods are of course a shadow of once they were as old immigrants died off and younger generations moved to the suburbs and became more assimilated (although suburban enclaves did develop such as the South Shore of Staten Island, St. Leonard outside Montreal and Woodbridge outside Toronto). What are some of the most intact Italian neighborhoods at this point?

My guess is the most intact at this point are Bensonhurst/Dyker Heights/Bath Beach in SW Brooklyn, and the Dufferin-St. Clair "Corso Italia" in Toronto (a further flung neighborhood from Toronto's Little Italy). They've declined significantly from the 1990s on and are now quite ethnically mixed but still retain a lot of old school Italians who can still get by in the mother tongue.

[Docere]

AFAIK Bensonhurst and environs it really wasn't a major Italian area until the 1950s and 1960s, when it saw an influx of postwar immigration. The Federal Writers Project report on the city's Italians, written in 1938, didn't mention Bensonhurst among the city's major Italian areas. Glazer and Moynihan's Beyond the Melting Pot, written in the early 1960s, neglected to mention it when the discussed the city's Italian neighborhoods even as this immigration was underway.

I think it was mainly Jewish in the 1930s and 1940s - some famous Jews from Bensonhurst include Larry King, Carl Sagan and Sandy Koufax.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by Docere

AFAIK Bensonhurst and environs it really wasn't a major Italian area until the 1950s and 1960s, when it saw an influx of postwar immigration.

Correct. Bens:onhurst was mostly Jewish until the 1960's. When these Jews (mostly liberal, secular Jews) started moving to Long Island/New Jersey, they were replaced by Italian migrants from Sicily and Calabria.

Bensonhurst was probably "peak Italian" in the 1980's, once the Jews had moved out/passed on and before the Chinese and Russians had moved in.

[north 42]

Via Italia (Erie St.) is the "Little Italy" in Windsor, but also for Detroit. It has grown organically and is still the Italian area of the city. Lots of shops and amazing restaurants, bars and cafes.

http://viaitalia.com

[Docere]

Originally Posted by north 42

Via Italia (Erie St.) is the "Little Italy" in Windsor, but also for Detroit. It has grown organically and is still the Italian area of the city. Lots of shops and amazing restaurants, bars and cafes.

http://viaitalia.com

Windsor might have the most thriving "Little Italy" in Canada outside Toronto/Montreal.

Interestingly the average Italian Canadian Windsorite lives closer to downtown Detroit than the average Detroit Italian American does.

[the urban politician]

Little Italy's in the US basically don't exist any more beyond being a collection of Italian restaurants

[montréaliste]

Montreal's Little Italy, or "Petite Italie" is situated near Jean Talon street around St Lawrence boulevard. It is still teming with Italian businesses and some residential holdouts. St Leaonard in the east end of Montreal Island is bigger and more recent from the fifties on and is now becoming more Latin American and Arabic. But the now old money is definiteley Italian, they are the builders of condo towers and own property in the billions.

Little Italy is also becoming more Latin American, Arabic, and Vietnamese but always comprised an important Lebanese Syrian community dating back to the turn of the century.

There are many small clusters of Italian neighborhoods in Montreal, like the ones in LaSalle, and NDG with a fair amount of specialized businesses.

[Beedok]

I'm used to cities which are Italian enough that neighbourhoods get defined by having a lack of Italian presence.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by Beedok

I'm used to cities which are Italian enough that neighbourhoods get defined by having a lack of Italian presence.

In the NYC area, any regular white middle class neighborhood within 100 miles or so of Manhattan will have an Italian presence. Of course Italians are suburbanized alongside everyone else, but there are still some old-school urban enclaves.

Putting aside the touristy Little Italies of the region, places that are both old-school Italian and where you may hear Italian spoken would be:

Dyker Heights Brooklyn (around 13th Ave.)
Morris Park, Bronx (around White Plains Road and Williamsbridge Road)
Middle Village, Queens (along Metropolitan Ave.)
Howard Beach, Queens (along Cross Bay Blvd.)

Then there's the South Shore of Staten Island, which is definitely Italian, and where you are very likely to hear Italian, but the problem is it's newer and more suburban, so you lose the feel, even if the shopping plazas are full of salumerias and Italian bakeries.

There are other Italian enclaves, but I would say less intense these days. These would be East Williamsburg around Metropolitan Ave. (yeah, hipsterville still has an Italian section, where you still see little old Italian ladies making "gravy" outside their house), Bensonhurst around 18th Ave. (though the Chinese are really taking over this section), Whitestone, Queens, Mill Basin, Brooklyn, Gravesend, Brooklyn (which has some really good Sicilian places still) and even Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn (though this area is also super yuppieville).

In the suburbs, the South Shore of Long Island tends to be very Italian, as is Eastchester (Westchester County), parts of Yonkers (which has a Little Italy), parts of SW Connecticut.

In NJ, Garfield, Lodi, Belleville, Bloomfield would probably be the most Italian towns, and are old enough that they have a bit of the urban Italian-American feel, with street-corner shopping. There are old school Little Italies in Newark, Paterson, Trenton.

[Docere]

Originally Posted by Crawford

In the NYC area, any regular white middle class neighborhood within 100 miles or so of Manhattan will have an Italian presence. Of course Italians are suburbanized alongside everyone else, but there are still some old-school urban enclaves.

Putting aside the touristy Little Italies of the region, places that are both old-school Italian and where you may hear Italian spoken would be:

Dyker Heights Brooklyn (around 13th Ave.)
Morris Park, Bronx (around White Plains Road and Williamsbridge Road)
Middle Village, Queens (along Metropolitan Ave.)
Howard Beach, Queens (along Cross Bay Blvd.)

Then there's the South Shore of Staten Island, which is definitely Italian, and where you are very likely to hear Italian, but the problem is it's newer and more suburban, so you lose the feel, even if the shopping plazas are full of salumerias and Italian bakeries.

There are other Italian enclaves, but I would say less intense these days. These would be East Williamsburg around Metropolitan Ave. (yeah, hipsterville still has an Italian section, where you still see little old Italian ladies making "gravy" outside their house), Bensonhurst around 18th Ave. (though the Chinese are really taking over this section), Whitestone, Queens, Mill Basin, Brooklyn, Gravesend, Brooklyn (which has some really good Sicilian places still) and even Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn (though this area is also super yuppieville).

Which is quite different from the Italian geography of the city ca. 1940. At that time East Harlem was the biggest Italian neighborhood in the city and Little Italy in Manhattan was still going strong. The major Italian areas of the outer boroughs then I believe were Arthur Ave/Belmont in the Bronx, and Red Hook/Carroll Gardens and Bushwick and Williamsburg in Brooklyn.

After the war, Manhattan ceased to be attractive to Italian Americans or to new immigrants.

My guess is the "old" Italian areas of Brooklyn were the initial settlements for the postwar immigrants but the center of Italian life in Brooklyn spread southward, with Bensonhurst and environs soon becoming the city's biggest Italian neighborhood. It's interesting that it went from Jewish to Italian, rather than an earlier Italian population attracting a later one.

The "old" Italian American population, meanwhile, moved to Queens and out of the city altogether to Long Island in the postwar years. So I'm guessing the Italian neighborhoods of Queens, like Howard Beach (which is pretty suburban in character) attracted both "old" Italian Americans and postwar immigrants.

Meanwhile, I suspect Staten Island is really just an offshoot of Bensonhurst and a suburban outpost that really took off a generation later than LI.

At this point I suspect the descendants of Italian immigrants a century ago mostly live in far-flung suburbs and exurbs like Suffolk County, Dutchess County, central NJ etc., with some assimilated yuppies and hipsters living in Manhattan and the "hip" parts of Brooklyn rather than in the Italian enclaves that are still largely first and second generation.

Third and fourth generation Italian Americans still living in the "old neighborhood" is probably more of a Philadelphia thing.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by Docere

At this point I suspect the descendants of Italian immigrants a century ago mostly live in far-flung suburbs and exurbs like Suffolk County, Dutchess County, central NJ etc., with some assimilated yuppies and hipsters living in Manhattan and the "hip" parts of Brooklyn rather than in the Italian enclaves that are still largely first and second generation.

Third and fourth generation Italian Americans still living in the "old neighborhood" is probably more of a Philadelphia thing.

Yeah, probably. I think this all makes reasonable sense. The thing is, Brooklyn real estate went from Detroit to San Francisco in one generation, so older Italians cashed out big-time, or if their kids inherited the real estate, they sold. And it isn't really the gentrification/hipster stuff. It's mostly demographic expansion by Orthodox Jews and huge new waves of immigrants to SW Brooklyn, especially Russians and Chinese.

Orthodox Jews have replaced Italians in a number of areas, but especially Gravesend. They put massive demand on S. Brooklyn real estate, especially around Ocean Parkway, and formerly semi-dumpy Italian areas are now all Orthodox and filled with faux-palazzos.

This neighborhood was all Italian 30 years ago. Now you have a fancy apartment building for Orthodox Jews, obvious Orthodox-oriented retail, an Israeli falafel place and a Russian pharmacy.
https://www.google.com/maps/place/44...tUA9MQxB0IHDAA

This neigborhood is still somewhat Italian, but massively reduced. Note the Russian, Hebrew and Chinese signage, alongside some Italian places. The condo buildings going up everywhere cater to Russians/Ukranians.
https://www.google.com/maps/place/39...ea350b!6m1!1e1

And then Chinese took Bensonhurst and Bath Beach and the Russians took Sheepshead Bay and Madison.

In Philly, you don't have quite the same demographic pressures, so the old school Italian-American presence is a bit more obvious. There's less reason to sell and move to North Carolina and Florida when grandma's dumpy old home isn't getting $1.4 million. But Brooklyn has a more clearly Italian presence because of the postwar immigration. The Italian-American "Vinny from Brooklyn" cliche (separate from the Italians who came in the 1960's and 70's) is long gone. You'll still find this in Staten Island, though.

[brickell]

Originally Posted by Docere

At this point I suspect the descendants of Italian immigrants a century ago mostly live in far-flung suburbs and exurbs like Suffolk County, Dutchess County, central NJ etc.,

Or Florida. Is there a word like Nyricans, but for New York Italians? Because that's what we have. Lots of them. Not so much in Miami anymore but anywhere else along the coast. Of course at this point it's not Little Italys. It's more like Little New Yorks. But the Italian in them feels like a big influence.

[Xing]

Chicago has its original Little Italy near University of Illinois - Chicago, and an unofficial neighborhood on the Near West Side on Grand Avenue, near Grand and Noble (mostly a high concentration of ITALIAN restaurants and businesses).

St Louis has, "The Hill." It Produced some famous ITALIAN American athletes - Yogi Berra, Joe Garragiola, and the 1950's US Men's World Cup soccer league. The Hill is also known for its restaurants and Italian businesses.

[JivecitySTL]

The Hill in St. Louis is still over 80% Italian.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by JivecitySTL

The Hill in St. Louis is still over 80% Italian.

If that's true, it's probably the most urban Italian neighborhood in North America. That's an incredibly high %.

[Jawnadelphia]

Yo Cuz! The Italian Market area and a lot of South Philly .... YOOOO! (well historically, although - today, the Italian Market is a mix of - Italian, Vietnamese, and Mexican). Attaboy Bo!

[SPonteK]

.

[SPonteK]

Originally Posted by JivecitySTL

The Hill in St. Louis is still over 80% Italian.

Hahaha.

[dc_denizen]

South philly is the most authentic urban Italian neighborhood left.

[Docere]

In the US, South Philly is probably the largest contiguous "Little Italy" - though they've moved further away from the Italian Market itself. There are still several Italian-majority census tracts. It may be the Italian American neighborhood par excellence - I don't think Philadelphia received much postwar immigration.

Largest "Italian Italian" (i.e. where Italian is still commonly spoken) is certainly southwestern Brooklyn. Though I'm pretty sure the remaining Italian enclaves in the Bronx, Queens and Staten Island today is heavily made up of postwar immigrants and their descendants as well (i.e. Howard Beach, the South Shore of Staten Island, Morris Park).