Italian Festival resurges in Port Jervis
The 2nd Annual Bella Notte Italiana / Italian Festival will be in Orange Square Park in Port Jervis on August 20. The entertainment lineup will include the return of Sal Valentinetti, Golden Buzzer winner from America’s Got Talent. Also performing will be award winning singer and PBS television host Cristina Fontanelli and the Uncle Louie Variety S...
Italy’s Top Consul General Hosts COPOMIAO Reception in NYC
Fabrizio Di Michele, the Consul General of Italy in New York, hosted a grand reception on Saturday, July 23 to honor and celebrate the emerging bond between the Italian government and The Conference of Presidents of Major Italian American Organizations (COPOMIAO). Held at the Italian Consulate headquarters in NYC, the gathering reflects an ongoing...
Italian Center cuts ribbon on courtyard Saturday
Buffalo’s Italian Cultural Center cut the ribbon yesterday on a brand new courtyard. It’s called the Russel J. Salvatore courtyard. The restauranteur helped fund the project. It’s located at the corner of Delaware Avenue and Hertel. The courtyard has new statues, lights, tables along with a bocce court and community garden. There’s a fountain that...
Rochester’s Little Italy Neighborhood to Celebrate National Recognition as Little Italy Festival Marks its Return to Downtown Rochester at Parcel 5 August 20th
After a two-year pandemic hiatus, the "De Cecco Little Italy Festival of Rochester, NY," will mark its triumphant return to downtown Rochester on August 20th at Parcel 5, to celebrate the National Recognition recently awarded to Rochester’s historic Little Italy Neighborhood, located in the city's Jay Street and Lyell Avenue commercial corridors. ...
Italian American festival is this Friday, Saturday in Watkins Glen, NY
The 2022 Italian American Festival will return this weekend to Watkins Glen, Aug. 5 and 6. With expectations from festival organizers that thousands of visitors will come to the village, Festival President and Deputy Mayor Louis Perazzini is keeping his fingers crossed for good weather. "Good weather, that is all we need, because the people will co...
The Italian America Show Returns!
We are very excited to announce that our television series, The Italian America Show, is returning for Season 3 on News 12+ this September in the New York City Metropolitan area. If outside the NYC Metro area, you can stream the episodes online! Be sure to tune in every Sunday at 8 p.m. EST for our 30-minute episodes featuring interviews with promi...
Lisa LaRocca Dishes up the Latest With News12 Westchester
My alarm goes off at 1:30 a.m. — it’s barbaric, I know,” says Lisa LaRocca, longtime reporter for News12 Westchester. While she admits to the occasional tap of the snooze button, LaRocca is up long before dawn almost every day, preparing to go wherever news is being made in our area. On air at 5 a.m. sharp, she has to move fast during those early m...
Conference of Presidents Holds Landmark Meeting in NYC
The Conference of Presidents of Major Italian American Organizations (COPOMIAO) unveiled its bold agenda for the coming year at its annual membership meeting in NYC in late July. President Basil M. Russo presented the delegates of the 58 member organizations with a detailed breakdown of three major initiatives. Developing a comprehensive campaign t...
Canastota Italian American Festival returns Aug. 13
After a two-year hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Canastota Italian Heritage Committee will be hosting an Italian-American Festival on North Canal Street in the Village of Canastota on Saturday, Aug. 13. The festival will kick off next to the historic Erie Canal at 11 a.m. and will run until 7 p.m. The celebration of Italian American cultur...
Unknown Stories of WNY: Remembering a local hero
John Basilone was a hero in WWII and now the Navy has christened a second ship in his name and there is also a movement to recognize him here in his hometown. Basilone, born on the West Side of Buffalo, November 4, 1916, into an Italian-American family, the sixth of ten children. Basilone enlisted in the Army in 1934, then in the Marines in 1940. H...
Salvatore H. Alfiero, 84, philanthropist and master of corporate takeovers
When Salvatore H. Alfiero was profiled in newspaper articles in the late 1980s, after his business, Mark IV Industries, had become Buffalo's first new Fortune 500 company in a decade, reporters remarked how different he was from other corporate executives. Jerry Zremski described him in 1988 in The Buffalo News as "an affable, rumpled fellow,"...
It Began with Verrazzano
On July 8th 1524, Italian explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano returned to France after having roughly surveyed the entire east coast of North America from Florida to Newfoundland. A few months earlier, he had entered New York Harbor – the first European to do so. Thanks to the late Italian American activist John LaCorte of Brooklyn, that arrival was m...