Little Italy, New York City

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Not as big as Chinatown and not as impressive either, but still a nice area to visit. Check out all the big mafia style cars that are in front of some of the restaurants. Fantastic! Also there are a lot of shops selling cheap t-shirts like a Hello Titty t-shirt. I had a great laugh over this and decided to buy it. I couldn't resist. Furthermore there's a couple nice restaurants and bars.

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Just after the Chinese area, your enter in Little Italy. In fact, the main thing there is Italian Restaurant. In all the streets of Little Italy, 80% of the ground floors are Italian Restaurants.
Well, for Americans, an Italian restaurant is a romantic name for pizza and spaghetti fast food.
All the restaurants have a name to remind a place in Italy, but they serve the same food. I cannot say that I tasted food in all the restaurants, but I could read the menus in front of all the doors. Well, all the same.

Visit shops and restaurants.

Always try to impress you host in the restaurant that you speak a little Italian, i.e. learn right pronounciation of words like manicotti, pizza, or even when we are at it venti and sphagetti. : )

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Going to Little Italy is one thing. Going to Little Italy during San Gennaro, is a totally different experience. The smell of food in the air is amazing! The people are so friendly, and once you sink your teeth into anything you buy, is like your in heaven!

*update: I am actually going back to Little Italy for the 79th Annual Feast of San Gennaro (Sept. 2006). Since I have been in NY, this is one of the only festivals I tend to keep going to year after year. I am very excited to go take pictures, and buy delicious food, and share this experience with my boyfriend and one of my best friends. Its going to be a treat.

Now for some background information on the Feast of San Gennaro:

San Gennaro is one of New Yorks largest feat's/festivals. This year, in 2006, San Gennaro will be celebrating it's 79th annual feast. It will be 11 days long from september 14th - september 24th. The San Gennaro festival celebrates the Patron Saint of Naples. The very first San Gennaro festival took place on September 19, 1926. On this day in history,newly arrived immigrants from Naples settled along Mulberry Street in Little Italy (NYC) and they had decided to continue the tradition they followed in Italy. That tradition was to celebrate the day when Saint Gennaro was martyred for the faith in 305 A.D. Every year on September 19th, a Religious Procession happens that includes the Statue of San Gennaro. This statue goes down Mulberry and Mott St., between Canal and Houston St.. The procession begins immediately following a Celebratory Mass held at the Most Precious Blood Church on Mulberry Street, the National Shrine of San Gennaro. This is really interesting, especially for me, as I am not very religious, the saint is covered in money. I believe it is for good luck, but I am not sure. I have taken a picture in front of it a few years ago, and Ill do it again when I go there tomorow.

Once the home of much of New York City's Italian population, Little Italy has become more of a tourist destination than a residential neighborhood. Previously, Little Italy spread from Canal Street north to Houston, but now its borders are limited to about four city blocks. Still, Little Italy is worth visiting for delicious imported Italian groceries and . Being Italian I needed to see how it looked like, I wasn`t very impressed but I can see it`s a bit like diving into a typical street of an old looking italian touristic village, with its cafes and restaurants

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Little Italy is centered around Mulberry Street from Spring Street to Canal Street in Manhattan. The narrow streets are packed with New York's best Italian restaurants and cafes.
Major Sights in geographical order

Old St. Patrick's Cathedral (Prince Street & Mulberry Street)
Umberto's Clam House (Hester Street & Mulberry Street)
Bowery Savings Bank (130 Bowery at Grand)
Former Police Headquarters Building (Centre Street from Grand to Broome)
Fourteenth Ward Industrial School of the Children's Aid Society (256-58 Mott Street between Prince and Houston)
Pioneer Hotel (146-48 Bowery at Broome)
Puck Building (295-309 Lafayette Street)

We came there when teh famous San Gennaro Festival was held. There were street-markets and carnival stands with a lot of fun and delicious italian food!

Little Italy is centered around Mulberry Street from Spring Street to Canal Street in Manhattan. The narrow streets are packed with New York's best Italian restaurants and cafes.

The Feast of San Gennaro is an annual celebration of Saint Gennaro, the Patron Saint of Naples, who was martyred in 305 A.D. New York City's first feast took place on September 19, 1926, when newly arrived immigrants from Naples settled along Mulberry Street, and decided to continue the celebration that began in Italy years before

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"Bambino, are you lost? I take a you back a to my casa and give a you a good a food a ok?"

OK, well it didnt necessarily work out like that.....but nobody needs to know the truth do they? It was actually a girl, around my age I think who saw Charles and I discussing where Little Italy could actually be...ha ha! It was plainly obvious where it was, but we didnt know in what direction next to walk to stay in it. So this girl asked us if she could help and she directed us to a great restaurant and then said that if we were wanting dessert afterwards, to head over to another place which do delicious cakes and ice cream! It was so nice of her to tell us this and something which i had already found to be a trait in the New Yorkers! You see in London, there is no way that people have the time of day to help tourists and you really feel lost sometimes, but here, in the Big Apple, it felt different. We had already been told what stop to get off on the subway by a drunk/tramp earlier on in the day, and we would yet have the pleasure of meeting someone who saved one of my shoes...(tell you in another section about that!).

So off we walked in the right direction looking at menus as we went trying to decide on what we wanted to eat and how much we wanted to pay. We arrived at the recommeded place but they specialised in pastas and Charles really wanted a pizza, but the waiter told us very enthusiastically where else we could go for a good pizza. My goodness, do these people have no loyalty to their restaurants we wondered? Well it soon became obvious when we appraoched the second place that it was actually co-run by the first one, so it all started to make sense now! They had a great deal going of $9.95 for a soup and main meal, so we 'indulged' ourselves....and it was actually really nice. But please remember that tax will then get added on top. 'Il Piccolo Buffalo' was its name.