Italian Harlem
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Italian Harlem is a neighborhood in East Harlem in the New York City borough of Manhattan, inhabited by an Italian American population. Today Italian Harlem is called Spanish Harlem because of its large Latino population. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries a huge wave of immigrants came from Southern Italy and Sicily moved around Pleasant Avenue in East Harlem. The borders were 96th Street on the South to 125th Street on the north, though after 116th Street the section wasn't as heavily Italian then the ones south of it. The Western border was Fifth Avenue and the Eastern border was the East River. The neighborhoods were one of New York's several crowded, rough and impoverished immigrant settling places in Manhattan in the early 20th centuries. Italian Harlem approached its peak in the 1930s, with over 100,000 Italian-Americans living in its tight, run-down apartment buildings.[1] Each street had Italians from different regions of Italy, they were mostly divided amongst Sicilians, then a mixture of Southern Italians, followed by a decent amount of Northern Italians. However, in the late 1960s, a large section of Italian Harlem was leveled for urban renewal and the building of Franklin Plaza, forcing many of the Italian residents to move to the Bronx or Brooklyn.
[edit] Today
Some Italian vestiges remain including a barber shop, a bakery, Patsy's Pizzeria and Rao's. Most of the Italian American population has left and moved to the Bronx and Brooklyn. Most of these predominantly older residents are clustered around Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church, mainly from 114th to 118th Street. There are roughly a little over 1,000 Italian-Americans still living in this area.[2] There were many crime syndicates in Italian Harlem from the early Black Hand to the bigger and more organized Italian gangs that formed the Italian-American Mafia Italian American actor Al Pacino was born in Italian Harlem.
[edit] References
- ^ Jackosn, Kenneth T., The Encyclopedia of New York City, Yale University Press, 1995, p. 605. "Their number increased slightly during the 1930s, when as many as 110,000 Italians lived east of Lexington Avenue between 96th and 116th streets and east of Madison Avenue between 166th and 125th streets."
- ^ Garland, Sarah. "A Reunion of Little Italy in East Harlem", The New York Times, September 5, 2006. Accessed January 2, 2008. "Now, there are only 1,130 Italian-Americans left in East Harlem, according to the 2000 census."
