I Madonnari Festival to be held online this Memorial Day weekend
Santa Barbara County announced that this year's I Madonnari Italian Street Painting Festival will be held online during Memorial Day weekend. The I Madonnari Festival brings together street painters and chalk artists to create over 100 colorful pastel masterpieces on the plaza pavement outside of Old Mission Santa Barbara each year. However, due to...
IIC Webinar series : Cinzia Zuffada : Reflections on the Earth Viewed from Space : May 5th at 4:30 PM PDT
Tuesday, May 5, 2020. 4:30 pm PDT. Register here. Presented by the Italian Cultural Institute of Los Angeles with the Italian Culture Institutes of New York, Washington D.C. and San Francisco. Journalist Maria Teresa Cometto in conversation with Dr. Cinzia Zuffada, Associate Chief Scientist at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory: Reflections on the...
Luigi’s: A family affair built on customer service, teamwork and efficiency
When you’ve been a part of the community as long as the Lemucchi family, you become ingrained in its very fabric. Joe Lemucchi immigrated to California from Lucca, Italy, and opened his original cafe in 1906 on Sumner Street. He later married fellow Italian Emilia Degiuli and they moved to the current location on East 19th Street in 1910. Together...
North Beach's authentic Italian food purveyors struggle to keep their culture—and businesses—alive
Once a hallmark of San Francisco and a bustling neighborhood for the local Italian community, North Beach is struggling to hang onto its legacy. The last decades haven't been kind to this quarter as rising rents have forced most of its family-run Italian businesses to bail, leaving commercial real estate vacancies somewhere around 50 percent. Now t...
ISSNAF-BAC Talk Series - April 2020
Wednesday, April 29, 2020. 5:30 PM – 7:00 PM PDT. register here. Dear ISSNAF BAC members and friends, in these difficult times, the sense of community and familiar faces provide a feeling of comfort. In this spirit, we would like to continue bringing together the community of Italian scholars and scientists in the Bay Area. In the last two years, B...
Visiting San Francisco's North Beach in the Era of Social Distancing
How people will gather in person in the foreseeable future is unpredictable. But let's assume they won't be eager to rub shoulders with large numbers of strangers anytime very soon. So how will visitors approach places like North Beach, that swath of idiosyncratic, locally owned restaurants, coffeehouses, shops, bars, clubs and historic sites that...
Italian tenor in San Diego uses music to inspire-free online concert on April 25
Italian tenor, Rosario Monetti and the Employee Rights Center (ERC) have come together to present the online musical event- Metamorphosis- live from San Diego! The FB live concert will take place on Saturday April 25 from 12noon (PDT), 3 pm (EST) and 9 pm (CET). Monetti joins the line-up of influential and well known singers from around the world...
Summer Fancy Food Show Is Canceled
The Specialty Food Association’s Summer Fancy Food Show, scheduled for June 28-30 at the Jacob Javits Center in New York, will not take place as planned due to events outside of the SFA's control. These include the national and global response to the COVID-19 pandemic, associated travel restrictions, and the Javits Center’s critical service in figh...
Distant but Close at Heart - Lontani ma vicini col cuore
It's no surprise that our world has drastically changed since the unveiling of the Little Italy of Los Angeles sign just a few short months ago. Our quaint town has gone slightly quieter and we miss creating memories with all of you. Today we find joy in the little moments and find gratitude in our health, community and safety. However, while our e...
I Madonnari Italian Street Painting Festival canceled
With the COVID-19 pandemic and uncertainty as to when the community can safely gather again, the Children’s Creative Project (CCP) made the very difficult decision to cancel the 2020 I Madonnari Italian Street Painting Festival scheduled for May 23-25, 2020. This annual event brings 25,000 people together to enjoy the spectacular street paintings c...
Alessandro Del Piero is providing meals to Children's Hospital of LA staff through his restaurant
Alessandro Del Piero is one of the most popular Italian soccer players of all-time and one of the most recognizable names in Italian sports and in the soccer world as a whole. For the past couple of years, Del Piero and his wife, Sonia Amoruso, have been running an Italian restaurant in Los Angeles called No. 10, in honour of his jersey number. On...
Little Italy San Diego: A Message from Marco Li Mandri
I have been working in Little Italy for over 25 years now and have seen it grow from an area formerly branded as “Harborview” to the Little Italy it is today. Since the inception of the Business Improvement District in 1996, the Association (a charitable, non-profit corporation) has grown from a group of 17 business and community Board members, wit...