Italian Harlem - History

History

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries a huge wave of immigrants came from Southern Italy and moved to East Harlem. Most were concentrated in the area east of Lexington Avenue between 96th and 116th Streets and east of Madison Avenue between 116th and 125th Streets. Italian Harlem approached its peak in the 1930s, with over 100,000 Italian-Americans living in its crowded, run-down apartment buildings. Each street had Italians from different regions of Italy, consisting mainly of Sicilians, a broad mixture of other Southern Italians, and a moderate number of Northern Italians. 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, moving to the Bronx at the age of two.

Among its most famous residents were Fiorello La Guardia, mayor of New York from 1934 to 1946. In the 1950s and 1960s, large sections of Italian Harlem were leveled for urban renewal projects. The neighborhood retained a large Italian presence through the 1970s.