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40-723: Nolita , sometimes written as NoLIta and deriving from "Northern Little Italy ", is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City . Nolita is situated in Lower Manhattan , bounded on the north by Houston Street , on the east by the Bowery , on the south roughly by Broome Street , and on the west by Lafayette Street . It lies east of SoHo , south of NoHo , west of the Lower East Side , and north of Little Italy and Chinatown . The neighborhood

80-641: A move to Lyndhurst, New Jersey . Little Italy residents have seen organized crime since the early 20th century. Powerful members of the Italian Mafia have operated in Little Italy . Little Italy is the locale of the fictional Corleone family depicted in the novel The Godfather and the film trilogy based on it. It is also the setting for the Martin Scorsese film Mean Streets (1973), starring Harvey Keitel and Robert De Niro ,

120-528: A nine-story-high ornate structure built in 1885 on the corner of Houston and Lafayette Streets, originally housed the headquarters of the now-defunct Puck Magazine. Since 2010, a Little Australia has emerged and is growing in Nolita on Mulberry Street and Mott Street . Little Italy, Manhattan Little Italy (also Italian : Piccola Italia ) is a neighborhood in Lower Manhattan in New York City , known for its former Italian population. It

160-605: A one-day religious commemoration. It began in September 1926 with the new arrival of immigrants from Naples. The Italian immigrants congregated along Mulberry Street in Manhattan's Little Italy to celebrate San Gennaro as the Patron Saint of Naples . The Feast of San Gennaro is a large street fair, lasting 11 days, that takes place every September along Mulberry Street between Houston and Canal Streets. The festival

200-774: A single historic district on the National Register of Historic Places . Little Italy, by this point, was shrinking rapidly. Foods and traditions that were invented in Little Italy include sausage and peppers and the rainbow cookie . In addition, the Italian-American Christmas Eve tradition of the Feast of the Seven Fishes originated in Little Italy back in the late 1800s. The New York Times sent its reporters to characterize

240-546: A sociologist and professor at University at Albany, SUNY , said, "The fascinating part here is the way in which ethnic tourism—not only by Italian Americans but by people who want to see an authentic urban village—keeps these neighborhoods going." Little Italy was also home to Alleva Dairy , the oldest cheese shop in the United States. The store was founded in 1892 and was located on Grand Street until March 2023, when it closed its Little Italy location and announced

280-439: A tourist from Milan ." Tonelli added, "You have to slow your gaze to find the neighbors in this neighborhood, because they're so overwhelmed and outnumbered by the tourists. But once you focus, you can see them, standing (or sitting) in the interstices, taking in the scene, like the group of men, mostly senior citizens, loitering contentedly under an awning on Mulberry Street." By 2010 the U.S. Community Survey found that none of

320-441: A vastly growing community impacted the "U.S. labor movement in the 20th century" by making up much of the labor population in the garment industry". After World War II , many residents of the Lower East Side began moving to Brooklyn , Staten Island , eastern Long Island , Westchester and New Jersey . Chinese immigrants became an increased presence after the U.S. Immigration Act of 1965 removed immigration restrictions, and

360-584: Is a major east–west thoroughfare in Lower Manhattan in New York City , United States. It runs the full width of the island of Manhattan , from FDR Drive along the East River in the east to the West Side Highway along the Hudson River in the west. The street is divided into west and east sections by Broadway . Houston Street generally serves as the boundary between neighborhoods on

400-622: Is a station at Seventh Avenue, for the Houston Street ( 1 and ​ 2 trains). The Bleecker Street station ( 4 , ​ 6 , and <6> trains) has station entrances on the north side of Houston Street, due to its connection with the Broadway – Lafayette Street station as part of a larger station complex. Exit 5 on the FDR Drive is on Houston Street. The street also connects directly with

440-537: Is an annual celebration of Italian culture and the Italian-American community. In 1995, Mort Berkowitz became the professional manager of a community group that had been formed to take over management of the San Gennaro feast. Since then, Berkowitz became involved in other recreational activities in Little Italy, including the summer, Carnevale , Columbus Day , and Christmas events. Richard Alba,

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480-469: Is bounded on the west by Tribeca and Soho , on the south by Chinatown , on the east by the Bowery and Lower East Side , and on the north by Nolita . Little Italy used to extend as far south as Worth Street , as far north as Houston Street , as far west as Lafayette Street , and as far east as Bowery . It is now only five blocks on Mulberry Street north of Canal St. Little Italy originated at Mulberry Bend south of Canal, in what had formerly been

520-738: Is now the M9 between Avenues A and C . Additional service is provided by the eastbound M14D SBS east of Avenue D and the downtown M15 from Second Avenue to Allen Street. The M15 SBS doesn’t make any stops on Houston Street. A portion of the New York City Subway 's IND Sixth Avenue Line runs under Houston Street, between Sixth Avenue to just before Avenue A ; there are stations at Second Avenue ( F and <F> ​ trains) and Broadway – Lafayette Street ( B , ​ D , ​ F , <F> , and ​ M trains). Additionally, there

560-524: Is pronounced " HOW -stən " (" / ˈ h aʊ s t ən / "), in contrast to the city of Houston , Texas, whose name is pronounced " HYOO -stən " (" / ˈ h juː s t ən / "). The street was named for William Houstoun , whose surname was pronounced " HOW -stən ", while the city was named for Sam Houston . At its east end, Houston Street meets FDR Drive in an interchange at East River Park . West of FDR Drive, it intersects with Avenue D . Further west, other streets, including First Avenue ,

600-489: The New York Times city section debating various monikers for the newly trendy area, was Nolita , an abbreviation for No rth of L ittle Ita ly. This name follows the pattern started by SoHo ( So uth of Ho uston Street) and TriBeCa ( Tri angle Be low Ca nal Street). The neighborhood includes St. Patrick's Old Cathedral , at the intersection of Mulberry, Mott , and Prince Streets, which opened in 1815 and

640-569: The Bowery , Lafayette Street and Broadway , intersect Houston Street. The Broadway intersection is the division point between East Houston Street and West Houston Street. Sixth Avenue intersects Houston Street at a curve in the road in Greenwich Village . East of Sixth Avenue, Houston street is bidirectional and separated by a median ; west of Sixth, the street is narrower and unidirectional westbound. West Houston Street terminates at an intersection with West Street near Pier 40 on

680-650: The East Side of Manhattan— Alphabet City , the East Village , NoHo , Greenwich Village , and the West Village to the north; and the Lower East Side , most of the Bowery , Nolita , and SoHo to the south. The numeric street-naming grid in Manhattan, created as part of the Commissioners' Plan of 1811 , begins immediately north of Houston Street with 1st Street at Avenue A . The street's name

720-525: The Five Points area but is now the heart of Chinatown. Jacob Riis described Mulberry Bend as "the foul core of New York's slums." During this time period "Immigrants of the late 19th century usually settled in ethnic neighborhoods". Therefore, the "mass immigration from Italy during the 1880s" led to the large settlement of Italian immigrants in lower Manhattan. The results of such migration had created an "influx of Italian immigrants" which had "led to

760-471: The Manhattan Chinatown to Little Italy's south expanded. In 2004, Tonelli said, "You can go back 30 years and find newspaper clips chronicling the expansion of Chinatown and mourning the loss of Little Italy." Before 2004, several upscale businesses entered the northern portion of the area between Houston and Kenmare Street. Tonelli said, "Real-estate prices zoomed, making it even tougher for

800-628: The Hudson River. Houston Street is named for William Houstoun , who was a delegate from the state of Georgia to the Continental Congress from 1784 through 1786 and to the Constitutional Convention in 1787. The street was christened by Nicholas Bayard (b. 1736), whose daughter, Mary, was married to Houstoun in 1788. The couple met while Houstoun, a member of an ancient and aristocratic Scottish family,

840-525: The Italians than among any other foreigners except the Germans in the city. Since the late 1960s, when the United States allowed immigration from China, Chinatown's traditional boundary at Canal Street has inched northward into Little Italy. By the 1990s, while many Italian business remained, the blocks between Canal and Kenmare Streets had taken on a feel of Chinatown, though locals continue to refer to

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880-723: The Little Italy/Mulberry neighborhood in May 1896: They are laborers; toilers in all grades of manual work; they are artisans, they are junkman, and here, too, dwell the rag pickers. ... There is a monster colony of Italians who might be termed the commercial or shop keeping community of the Latins. Here are all sorts of stores, pensions, groceries, fruit emporiums, tailors, shoemakers, wine merchants, importers, musical instrument makers. ... There are notaries, lawyers, doctors, apothecaries, undertakers. ... There are more bankers among

920-433: The area (including Nolita) as Little Italy. As of the 2000 census , 1,211 residents claiming Italian ancestry lived in three census tracts that make up Little Italy. Those residents comprise 8.25% of the population in the community, which is similar to the proportion of those of Italian ancestry throughout New York City. Bill Tonelli of New York magazine contrasted Little Italy with the Manhattan Chinatown ; in 2000, of

960-553: The commercial gathering of their dwelling and business". Italian immigrants from Naples settled on Mulberry Street , immigrants from Puglia and Calabria settled on Mott Street , immigrants from Sicily settled on Elizabeth Street , and immigrants from northern Italy, especially Genoa settled on Baxter Street . Bill Tonelli from New York magazine said, "Once, Little Italy was like an insular Neapolitan village re-created on these shores, with its own language, customs, and financial and cultural institutions." Little Italy

1000-486: The current Houston Street, from Sixth Avenue to the West Side Highway , was known as "Hammersley Street" (also spelled "Hamersly Street") until the middle 19th century, and was inside Greenwich Village . It later came to be regarded as the Village's southern boundary. In 1891, Nikola Tesla established his laboratory on Houston Street. Much of Tesla's research was lost in an 1895 fire. The street, originally narrow,

1040-497: The dominance of Italians in the area "relatively short-lived." It attributes this to the quick financial prosperity many Italians achieved, which allowed them to leave the cramped neighborhood for areas in Brooklyn and Queens. The site also goes on to state that the area is currently referred to as Little Italy more out of nostalgia than as a reflection of a true ethnic population. In 2010, Little Italy and Chinatown were listed in

1080-769: The latter of whom also grew up in the neighborhood, and the Luc Besson film Léon: The Professional (1994), starring Jean Reno , Gary Oldman , and Natalie Portman . It is also depicted in the series finale of The Sopranos , titled " Made in America ", where a character walks down a block and finds himself in Chinatown, demonstrating how Little Italy has shrunk. Other Italian American neighborhoods in New York City include: Houston Street Houston Street ( / ˈ h aʊ s t ən / HOW -stən )

1120-557: The official map drawn in 1811 to establish the street grid that is still current. In those years, the Texas hero Sam Houston , for whom the street is sometimes incorrectly said to have been named, was an unknown teenager in Tennessee . Also mistaken is the explanation that the name derives from the Dutch words huis for house and tuin for garden. The narrow, westernmost stretch of

1160-648: The old-timers—residents and businesspeople alike—to hang on." After the September 11 attacks in 2001, areas below Houston Street were cut off for the rest of the fall of 2001. The San Gennaro feast , scheduled for September 13, was postponed. Business from the Financial District dropped severely, due to the closure of Park Row , which connected Chinatown and the Civic Center ; as a result, residents in Little Italy and Chinatown suffered. Tonelli said

1200-452: The people living in Little Italy were born in Italy, and 5% of residents identified as Italian American. Little Italy was home to dozens of restaurants that serve authentic Italian cuisine, but between March 2013 and March 2014, eight eateries closed down. Since 2004, Sorrento Lactalis funds neighborhood cultural events in Little Italy. The Feast of San Gennaro originally was once only

1240-519: The post-9/11 events "strangely enough, ended up motivating all these newfangled efforts to save what's left of the old neighborhood." In 2004 Tonelli said "Today, Little Italy is a veneer—50 or so restaurants and cafés catering to tourists, covering a dense neighborhood of tenements shared by recent Chinese immigrants, young Americans who can't afford Soho , and a few remaining real live Italians." This sentiment has also been echoed by Italian culture and heritage website ItalianAware . The site has called

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1280-404: The residents of the portions of Chinatown south of Grand Street, 81% were of Chinese origins. In 2004, Tonelli revisited the issue, saying, "Little Italy may always endure as an open-air theme park of nineteenth- and twentieth-century European immigration to the Lower East Side ... But you'll spend a long time in the neighborhood before you hear anyone speak Italian, and then the speaker will be

1320-535: The street serves as SoHo's northern boundary; another, narrower neighborhood north of Houston Street is correspondingly called NoHo . In 1971, Houston Street became the southernmost street in Manhattan to extend between both the Hudson and East Rivers, when the World Trade Center was constructed and deprived Fulton Street of that title. With the reconstruction of the World Trade Center , Fulton Street

1360-512: Was extended past Church Street to West Street , but is closed off to vehicular traffic west of Church Street . A reconstruction project rebuilt parts of the street between 2005 and 2018. As of 2024 , Houston Street is served by the M21 New York City Bus route from Columbia to Washington Streets westbound, and from 6th Avenue to the FDR Drive eastbound. The bus route itself had replaced an earlier streetcar line , which

1400-450: Was featured in the film The Godfather Part II . In the second half of the 1990s, the neighborhood saw an influx of yuppies and an explosion of expensive retail boutiques and restaurants and bars. After unsuccessful tries to pitch it as part of SoHo, real estate promoters and others came up with several different names for consideration for this newly upscale neighborhood. The name that stuck, as documented in an article on May 5, 1996, in

1440-426: Was long regarded as part of Little Italy, but has lost its recognizable Italian character in recent decades because of rapidly rising rents . The Feast of San Gennaro , dedicated to Saint Januarius ("Pope of Naples"), is held in the neighborhood every year following Labor Day, on Mulberry Street between Houston and Grand Streets. The feast, as recreated on Elizabeth Street between Prince and Houston Streets,

1480-624: Was markedly widened from Sixth Avenue to Essex Street in the early 1930s during construction of the Independent Subway System 's Sixth Avenue Line . The street widening involved demolition of buildings on both sides of the street, resulting in numerous small, empty lots. Although some of these lots have been redeveloped, many of them are now used by vendors, and some have been turned into playgrounds and, more recently, community gardens . Lower Manhattan's SoHo district takes its name from an acronym for "South of Houston", as

1520-628: Was not the largest Italian neighborhood in New York City, as East Harlem (or Italian Harlem ) had a larger Italian population. Tonelli said that Little Italy "was perhaps the city's poorest Italian neighborhood". In 1910 Little Italy had almost 10,000 Italians; that was the peak of the community's Italian population. At the turn of the 20th century, over 90% of the residents of the Fourteenth Ward were of Italian birth or origins. Tonelli said that it meant "that residents began moving out to more spacious digs almost as soon as they arrived." Such

1560-470: Was rebuilt in 1868 after a fire. The cornerstone was laid on June 8, 1809. This building served as New York City's Roman Catholic cathedral until the new St. Patrick's Cathedral was opened on Fifth Avenue in Midtown in 1879. St. Patrick's Old Cathedral is now a parish church . In 2010, St. Patrick's Old Cathedral was honored and became The Basilica at St. Patrick's Old Cathedral. The Puck Building ,

1600-460: Was serving in the Congress. Bayard cut the street through a tract he owned in the vicinity of Canal Street in which he lived, and the city later extended it to include North Street , the northern border of New York's east side at the beginning of the 19th century. The current spelling of the name is a corruption: the street appears as Houstoun in the city's Common Council minutes for 1808 and

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