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It’s difficult now, as we look at the current configuration of Wooster Square, to imagine and appreciate the magnitude of the Italian settlement there in the early part of the 20th century. Looking at the official census documents or copies of the city directory during that period gives us a sense of the density and homogeneity of the area. On stre...

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For Leo Marino, author of The House on Greene Street: Life and Times of a First Generation Italian American, compiling this first book was for his family. “This started 20 years ago,” says Marino, a Branford resident. “My brother and I talked about our ancestry. This was before the days of ancestry.com.” The family research took several trips to It...

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A documentary film about New Haven's Little Italy that has played to packed crowds all over the area will soon have three showings in Branford and East Haven. The film, The Village: Life in New Haven's Little Italy, was the creation of award-winning journalist Steve Hamm. It had its successful debut at last year's New Haven Documentary Film Festiva...

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The National Organization of Italian American Women is honoring three women who have been leaders in their communities, paying special tribute to U.S. Rep. Rosa L. DeLauro, D-3. The Connecticut Region of the NOIAW will hold its 10th annual Epiphany brunch to honor “Three Wise Women” from Connecticut from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Jan. 13 at the New Haven L...

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There is a fascination in the concept of Little Italy that still exists today, when many of these Italian neighborhoods are no longer there. Outdated, but only in some cities, the principle of physically limiting an area of the city according to Italian criteria, the concept of being together, making communities and proudly celebrating their origin...

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If you needed homemade Italian pork sausage in the mid-1950s and happened to be living near Wooster Square, Cavaliere’s Market on Wooster Street was the place to go. It had a balance of spices and herbs so unique that it drew customers from as far away as Massachusetts, and a flavor so tantalizing that, when the market closed in 1999, people would...

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In early December our store and most of the others in the neighborhood began to take on a holiday look. My father always decorated the large windows with laurel roping and a wreath on the door. Inside, there were baskets of figs imported from Italy and sacks of hard-shelled nuts, the most popular being walnuts and hazelnuts, or nocciole. Later in t...

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From his apartment overlooking New Haven’s Wooster Square and St. Michael Church, freelance writer and film maker Steve Hamm began noticing how many funeral processions went past in August 2017. St. Michael’s is where the old Italian-American families worship, and Hamm realized that with each funeral a lifetime of memories and stories about the old...

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On Sunday November 18, at 1:30, to celebrate the “Garment Workers of New Haven” exhibit now on permanent display at the New Haven Labor Center on 267 Chapel Street, New Haven, I'll be giving at talk, "Toil and Triumph: Italian American Women in the Sweatshops of New Haven." This will be followed by a walking tour of the actual working sites of New...

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How can you speak about Wooster Square without mentioning apizza, the iconic product of our neighborhood? Because there are so many versions of the apizza legend, I hesitate to tread on such hallowed ground. We claim to have invented, or at least concocted, what we now consider American pizza. New Haven’s version often leads just about every nation...

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