The Beautiful Brides of Italian Harlem
My aspiration to one day wear a glorious white wedding dress, started way back in the late 1960’s-early 1970’s. In 1966, my family moved out of East Harlem, and settled up in the Bronx. When I was a little girl, living in City Island, we lived close by to a catering hall, known then as The Lido. On the weekends, the limousines would roll up in fron...
Lifelong philanthropist Anthony D’Urso
New York City was no place to land alone in 1960 without a job, high school education or social safety net. Now imagine not speaking a lick of English when you stepped off the plane from Italy at the age of 21. What was a young man to do? For Antonio D’Urso, answers came, one after another, in terms any immigrant would understand. Work hard. Learn...
Cesare “Ches” Agusto Di Marzio da Cappelle sul Tavo lesse migliaia di lettere da e per l’Italia
Cesare "Ches" Agusto Di Marzio storico testimone della nostra emigrazione. La raccontò per l'American Museum of Immigration di "Ellis Island". Lesse e scrisse, per i nostri emigranti, migliaia di lettere da e per l'Italia. Raccolse le lettere dei soldati italo-americani impegnati nella Seconda Guerra Mondiale. Era nato a Cappelle sul Tavo, in prov...
Hundreds protest for the removal of Christopher Columbus statue on Astoria Boulevard
More than a hundred people marched toward Astoria Boulevard on June 17 to denounce the Christopher Columbus statue as a “symbol of genocide” and demand for it to be removed. The protest, organized by Queens-based group Justice for George Queens, began at Astoria Park’s War Memorial. The organizers hoped to show solidarity with Black and Indigenous...
Claudia Tenney calls attack on Utica Columbus statue dishonoring history
Candidate for New York’s 22nd Congressional District Claudia Tenney says taking down the statue of Christopher Columbus in Utica would be erasing history. The candidate sent the following statement on the matter: Christopher Columbus’s dangerous journey to explore the new world led to the discovery and eventual founding of the greatest country in t...
The 1924 Law That Slammed the Door on Immigrants and the Politicians Who Pushed it Back Open
AMERICA OF THE MELTING POT COMES TO END,” the New York Times headline blared in late April 1924. The opinion piece that followed, penned by Senator David Reed of Pennsylvania, claimed recent immigrants from southern and Eastern European countries had failed to satisfactorily assimilate and championed his recently passed legislation to severely rest...
Raffaello poeta, la complessità di un artista
Although it is rarely acknowledged by critics, Raphael was a writer, too. He drafted six love sonnets alongside the sketches of The Disputation of the Holy Sacrament. Petrarchan in style and dedicated to his beloved La Fornarina, the sonnets demonstrate Raphael’s engagement with courtly literature. This lecture will explore the interaction between...
Marisa Tomei Never Disappoints
New York is on Marisa Tomei’s mind. Yes, she is one of the quintessential Actors from NYC™ who are, for better or worse, inseparable from the charming grit of the town that helped shape them: Jennifer Lopez, Steve Buscemi, Rosie Perez, Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci—with whom she starred in the 1992 comedy classic My Cousin Vinny, winning herself an Osc...
Laura Mezzanotte: Born in a pandemic, died in another
Laura Mezzanotte never smoked and never drank. Yet even she was surprised she made it to 102. Her son Richard explained she had developed "a little dementia," and when she couldn’t remember how old she was, he would remind her of her birth year and the current year and make her do the math. She would say: "How did I live so long?" Mezzanotte, who h...
Christopher Columbus statue: Covered amid controversy, Italian Center says it will return
Christopher Columbus' head just barely peeks over a segment of black corrugated pipe. The eight-foot statue has served as a symbol of the City of Poughkeepsie's Italian Center since it was erected in 1992. But as of Friday, the Italian Center has covered the bronze monument. The change comes amid a renewed nationwide push protesting monuments erect...
A piece of history that still exists in New York’s Little Italy
Little Italy use to be the real thing…authentic. A place where Italian-Americans actually use to live. I remember my grand parents telling me that Little Italy it self was split into smaller communities. Mulberry Street was home to the settlers from Campania and Naples, Elizabeth Street was strictly Sicilian, Mott Street held the Calabresi, while m...
New York mayor joins governor in defending Columbus statue
New York Mayor Bill de Blasio yesterday ruled out removing a statue of explorer Christopher Columbus from the circle bearing his name near Central Park, entering the fraught US debate over the fate of monuments linked to the country's colonisers and pro-slavery past. In the wake of anti-racism protests across the United States sparked by the death...