The city’s “New York City Immigrant Enclaves” guide highlights 30 neighborhoods across the five boroughs, from Koreatown in Manhattan to Little Pakistan in Brooklyn and Little Yemen in the Bronx. But among the omissions was Little Italy, the iconic Manhattan neighborhood long synonymous with Italian-American culture that remains one of the city’s best-known tourist destinations. The map also excluded notable Irish and Jewish immigrant neighborhoods.“This is not a clerical error. This is cultural erasure,” Mike Crispi, president of the Italian American Civil Rights League, said. “Little Italy is sacred ground. It is where Italian immigrants came with nothing, worked like hell, opened shops, raised families, built churches, fed the city, and helped make New York what it is.”“Mamdani’s City Hall can find room for every fashionable progressive constituency, but somehow it cannot find Little Italy,” Crispi said. “Our culture is good enough for their photo ops, our food is good enough for their fundraisers, and our neighborhoods are good enough for tourism dollars — but when it comes time to recognize Italian Americans, they erase us.”
The league called on Mamdani to update the map, issue a public apology to Italian Americans, and include Little Italy and other historic Italian-American neighborhoods in future city projects recognizing immigrant heritage.People dine at an Italian restaurant in the Little Italy neighborhood, Wednesday, April 9, 2025, in New York. (Yuki Iwamura/AP Photo)
