Troy S Little Italy Revisited

A significant part of Troy's history, and that of its neighborhood, is the immigration of diverse ethnic groups. By 1900, the US Census reported 465 Italian-born residents in Troy, and in 1930, there were 2,000 Italian immigrants. From 1900 to the 1950s, Little Italy, bordering the central business district from Ferry Street to the Poestenkill and from Fourth Street to Prospect Park, was predominately an Italian or Italian American neighborhood. Among the close-knit families of Troy's Little Italy were import stores, 60 mom-and-pop shops, churches, schools, a community center, and a veterans' post, all of which were found within a 20-block radius. America's Little Italy neighborhoods became centers of ethnic culture and heritage. In the 1960s, urban renewal challenged Troy and other cities with mixed results. Today, there is resurgence in Troy, with plans to expand the city's central historic district to include most of Little Italy. In the meantime, empty nesters, artists, and young professionals are moving into the neighborhood as valuable community partners continue to support the efforts of the neighborhood group Troy Little Italy.

Italian immigrants began arriving in Troy in the late 1880s, escaping the abject poverty of their homeland. They settled in Troy's First and Eighth Wards, just south of the central business district, in an area bustling with activity. The neighborhood contained blocks of two- and three-story brick buildings and a mix of row houses and freestanding homes. Most homes were built on streets adjacent to the western slope of Mount Ida, the city's most prominent geographic feature. Within a few years, these Italian immigrants began opening small businesses, particularly on Fourth Street, the center of the Little Italy neighborhood, and soon became an important part of Troy's cultural heritage.

The entire Italian American experience—from America's earliest days through the present—is now available in a single volume. This wide-ranging work relates the entire saga of the Italian-American experience from immigration through assimilation to achievement. The book highlights the enormous contributions that Italian Americans—the fourth largest European ethnic group in the United States—have made to the professions, politics, academy, arts, and popular culture of America. Going beyond familiar names and stories, it also captures the essence of everyday life for Italian Americans as they established communities and interacted with other ethnic groups. In this single volume, readers will be able to explore why Italians came to America, where they settled, and how their distinctive identity was formed. A diverse array of entries that highlight the breadth of this experience, as well as the multitude of ways in which Italian Americans have influenced U.S. history and culture, are presented in five thematic sections. Featured primary documents range from a 1493 letter from Christopher Columbus announcing his discovery to excerpts from President Barack Obama's 2011 speech to the National Italian American Foundation. Readers will come away from this book with a broader understanding of and greater appreciation for Italian Americans' contributions to the United States.

Drawing out her mother's childhood memories of life in southern Italy at the dawn of the twentieth century, Mary Melfi takes an unconventional approach to autobiographical writing. Italy Revisited serves as a double memoir, told in dialogue between a mother and a daughter. The conversation takes the reader to a medieval town high up in the mountains where time is told by the shadow the sun casts, where wheat and olive oil are the currency of choice (barter is in use), and where marriage is as much about property as it is about love. As they re-create that vanished world, the pair finds greater understanding of the tumultuous relationships that sometimes exist between immigrant mothers and their children.