CENSUS: No Italians Left In Little Italy

According to the U.S. Census, the number of Italian-born residents of Manhattan's Little Italy is now zero.

A census survey released in December determined that the proportion of Italian-Americans among the 8,600 residents in the same two-dozen-square-block area of Lower Manhattan had shrunk to about 5 percent. And, incredibly, the census could not find a single resident who had been born in Italy. Little Italy is becoming Littler Italy. The encroachment that began decades ago as Chinatown bulged north, SoHo expanded from the west, and other tracts were rebranded more fashionably as NoLIta (for north of Little Italy) and NoHo seems almost complete. The Little Italy that was once the heart of Italian-American life in the city exists mostly as a nostalgic memory or in the minds of tourists who still make it a must-see on their New York itinerary.

Next month the city will create the Chinatown Business Improvement District, which will include all but two square blocks of Little Italy's 50 square blocks. According to the above-linked story, 89% of the foreign-born residents of Little Italy now hail from Asian countries.