Little Italy fighting to stay alive amid pandemic
BY DEAN MOSES
The city’s tourist drought
amid the COVID-19
pandemic has left Little
Italy businesses in tough fi nancial
straits.
News headlines have thoroughly
documented the ravages
of the COVID-19 pandemic, but
one only need to walk the streets
to see the consequences of a
city forced to choose between
fi nancial security and life itself
— empty storefronts, shuttered
doors and windows, and signs
reading: closed.
Many New Yorkers are aware
of several storefronts that have
been lost due to the times in
which we live. However, within
Little Italy, an entire community
of eateries is facing extinction.
Rich in history, Little Italy has
been a go-to tourist location for
visitors to explore and dine for decades.
This income from oversees
has helped the Lower Manhattan
neighborhood survive amidst
soaring rent prices. The annual
San Gennaro Feast also brought
droves of locals and tourists alike
to enjoy freshly made cannoli,
hand crafted gelato, powdered
funnel cake, and so many other
tantalizing treats. Each season
brought on the glitter of lights,
music, and laughter.
Then the pandemic hit last
spring — and now this bustling
social hub has become a
desert with the dawn of social
distancing.
After a year of little to no
tourism and the cancellation of
the iconic San Gennaro Feast,
Outside restaurant gardens and outdoor dining areas have been a struggle to maintain with
shifting safety restrictions.
business owners have been left
struggling to survive. Many of
the men and women who run
restaurants in the area have blood
ties to their storefronts, with their
family running the bars, diners,
and cafes for over a century. But
now this lineage is in jeopardy due
to the lack of patrons frequenting
the area.
“We are here since 1908 but
with the landlord and no tourists
we are hurting down here. We
need help drastically,” said Vivian
Catenaccio, the vice president of
Little Italy Merchants Association
(LIMA) and owner of the Mulberry
Street Bar and La Mella
Ristroante.
With the state of tourism as
it is, many of the restaurants are
forced to close two days a week
since they simply cannot afford
to remain open at a full schedule.
On Mondays and Tuesdays, the
inside of these renowned businesses
are left barren with chairs
stacked on tables and the lights
shut off.
Mulberry Street is famous for
accommodating celebrities, unfortunately
all that remains of that
facet now are the photographs
coating the walls that look out at
an empty La Mela Ristorante on
167 Mulberry St.
Those who have dined at these
locations know that many of them
harbor lavish paintings, antique
fi rearms, and other items from a
bygone era such as phone booths.
Akin to museums, stepping inside
can be like stepping into another
world. With such declining patronage,
Catenaccio warns that
these famed eateries could truly
become products of the past if
something is not done soon.
Prior to the pandemic, business
was booming with both international
and domestic tourists
purchasing crafted materials and
dining within the many restaurants
and pastry shops. But in
March 2020, everything came to
PHOTOS BY DEAN MOSES
a screeching halt and since then
owners like James Bari, owner of
Benito One restaurant, which was
established in 1968, have been
Little Italy is known for its delicious pastries and cuisines.
left to pick up the pieces of their
business.
“Mulberry Street depends on
tourism. We are not an Uptown
restaurant where you have all locals,
this is all tourists. Especially
during the San Gennaro Feast
in September and the Mulberry
Street Pedestrian mall from Memorial
weekend to Labor Day
weekend,” Bari said. “When the
pandemic hit, it destroyed us.”
Bari described the stress of
creating an outdoor dining space
and the rollercoaster ride of regulations
shifting every month made
it extremely diffi cult to maintain
a business.
Bari shelled out $10,000 to
create an outdoor structure in
July 2020 while struggling to
satisfy the requirements of the
Department of Buildings, Board
of Health, and Department of
Traffi c.
“We don’t know what to do to
bring us back,” Catenaccio said.
“Most of our restaurants in the
three blocks of what we call Little
Italy are family owned and we are
suffering, and we are losing them
one by one, and we can’t do that.”
As both Bari and Catenaccio
are doing their best to bring back
their staff with the help of PPE
loans; however, their outlook is
bleak since with the only hope
of domestic visitors and travelers
from the farthest being New
Jersey.
“All we do is spend, spend,
spend and we don’t recoup. We
don’t know what to do,” Catenaccio
said.
Despite these struggles, Bari
wants potential visitors to know
that “Little Italy is still alive.”The
restaurants are regulation safe
and open for business and are
hoping to get a grant or some sort
of fund to help struggling shops
in the area.
Vivian Catenaccio, the vice president of Little Italy Merchants
Association (LIMA)
4 April 29, 2021 Schneps Media