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A Bensonhurst record store is going strong after over 50 years of keeping Brooklyn residents in touch with their Italian heritage. SAS Italian Records opened in 1967 and houses more than 3,000 CDs and other items. Owner Silvana Conte says the store was the first Italian importer of some items they sell like sportswear, magazines and Italian DVDs. R...

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On most days, Bensonhurst’s new Italian-American community center looks like a miniature UN, with immigrants from all over gathering together for events and classes. Since the 1950s, Bensonhurst has been synonymous with Italian-American – the Little Italy of Brooklyn. But over the past 15 years, the demographics of the community have shifted, and n...

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Bensonhurst’s Italian-American community came out in droves on Saturday, Oct. 6 to celebrate the borough’s own 37th Annual Brooklyn Columbus Day Parade, which routinely marches along 18th Avenue, also known as Cristoforo Colombo Boulevard, after the Italian name for the explorer. The southern Brooklyn parade preceded the city’s larger scale Columbu...

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The proud traditions of Bensonhurst’s Italian-American community will be on full display when the 37th Annual Brooklyn Columbus Day Parade takes place on 18th Avenue (AKA Cristoforo Columbo Boulevard after the Italian name for the explorer) on Saturday, Oct. 6. New York City will hold a parade on Columbus Day Day, Monday, Oct. 8, on Fifth Avenue. B...

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Saturday October 6. 1:00 pm EDT. 18th Avenue and 61st Street up to Benson Avenue, Brooklyn, NY. Admission: free; open to the public. Contact: Joe Rizzi 718-259-2828; fax: 718-236-4405 j.rizzi@fiaobrooklyn.org Each year the Federation of Italian-American Organizations (FIAO) along with numerous other organizations sponsor the Brooklyn Columbus Parad...

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A Brooklyn civic leader who served alongside Mafalda DiMango on the local school board is leading an effort to convince the city to name the street corner outside P.S. 204 in Bensonhurst in memory of the iconic education advocate who died Aug. 2 at the age of 91. Carlo Scissura, president of the Federation of Italian-American Organizations of Brook...

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A Bensonhurst tradition continues. The annual Feast of Santa Rosalia, which starts at 68th Street and ends at Bay Ridge Parkway along 18thAvenue, also known as Cristoforo Colombo Boulevard, began last week. Per usual, the festival includes rides, music, games, drink and of course, food. “The Feast of Santa Rosalia, better known as the 18th Avenue F...

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Call it a slow-cooked Italian dish. The city’s first Italian-American community center, “Il Centro,” finally opened its Bensonhurst doors on June 21 — nearly a decade after the project was first announced. Construction of the center, at the corner of 18th and Benson avenues, was delayed for years because of hundreds of complaints neighbors filed wi...

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Historically, Brooklyn has always been a very popular destination for the Italian emigration to the US. Many places in Brooklyn were and some of them still are populated by many Italians. Now that this borough is getting cooler and cooler, it still is fundamental for the narration of the Italians in New York. The Federation of Italian American Orga...

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When I first moved to New York City seven years ago, my mother made me drive to a pasticceria in the East Village—De Robertis on First Avenue—to buy marzipan lambs, the traditional Sicilian Easter treat. On the designated day, my cell phone would ring several times: "The agnelli," she would say, using the Italian word for lambs. "What's going on wi...

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