New York’s Italian heart still beats. With more than 2.6 million paesanos living in NYC and environs — at last census, roughly 600,000 in the five boroughs — Italian-Americans are a vital part of city life and culture, a century after their ranks initially swelled to 17 percent of the city’s total population.
Today, that number is down considerably, as the diaspora has dispersed to other parts of the country — to between five and six percent. But even now, all over the Big Apple, or la Grande Mela, there remain blocks where you can hear the mother tongue, spot nonnas hollering for kids from their stoops, see guys in white tank tops showing off chest hair and cross necklaces, and catch entire families gathered for Sunday Mass — right before a neighbor invites you to pull up a lawn chair and stay a while.
