Welcome to Little Italy on Arthur Avenue

Most tourists think that New York's Little Italy is a few blocks in lower Manhattan filled with overpriced red-sauce spaghetti joints, tacky and vulgar t-shirts and knock-offs of designer duds. But knowledgeable New Yorkers know that the real Little Italy is in the Belmont section of the Bronx.

Arthur Avenue is the main street of Little Italy, packed with family run food shops and restaurants. Most of the places here not only sell Italian-style foods, they create it, including homemade cheese, sausage, pasta, bread, wine and pastry. The fish shops are operating-room clean, the bakeries warm and fragrant and the delis and cheese shops are brimming with pre-cut samples of their wares.

If you visit Arthur Avenue, you'll eat a little, drink a little, taste a little, walk a little. Have a cannoli, a handful of roasted ceci, a stuffed zucchini blossom, a briny clam on the half-shell, a slice of pepperoni, a chunk of olive bread. Benvenuto! Mangia, mangia!



Little Italy in the Bronx


Scungilli


Octopus


At sidewalk clam bar 


Beef tripe


Inside pork store


Outside Teitel Brothers' store


Sidewalk display outside Teitel Brothers' store


Inside Arthur Avenue Retail Market: Thank you Mr. Capone 


Rolling cigars at La Casa Grande Tobacco Company
 


Lamb heads inside Arthur Avenue Retail Market


In Arthur Avenue Market: Closed for my granddaughter


Inside Calandra Cheese


Cannoli filled while you wait 


Inside Madonia's Bakery 


Chocolate covered cannoli 


Rum cakes 


Cream puffs 


Eclairs


Arthur Avenue & E. 187th St.

Arthur Avenue

Village Voice: Arthur Avenue

Saveur: Arthur Avenue Guide

eGullet: Arthur Avenue

Off the Broiler: Arthur Avenue

Gastropoda: Arthur Avenue

New York Magazine: Arthur Avenue

Mike's Deli on Arthur Avenue

The Kids from Phyllis Wheatley

Students, to you 'tis given to scan the heights
Above, to traverse the ethereal space,
And mark the systems of revolving worlds

--Phyllis Wheatley

Although her poetry was once an international sensation, today Phyllis Wheatley is remembered more for her extraordinary life than her work.

Born on the western coast of Africa in the mid-1700s and kidnapped by slave-traders, she was purchased by Bostonian John Wheatley as a servant for his wife. Her name was derived from those of her owners and the ship that transported her to America, the Phillis. Observing her quick mind (she learned English in only a few months), the Wheatleys defied custom by teaching the young slave to read and write. Soon she was reading English, Greek and Latin classics and the Bible and composing poetry.

Six years after her arrival in America, Phyllis Wheatley's first poem was published; after another six years her book, the first published by a slave, made its debut. Her work brought her freedom, acclaim and renown. As a freewoman, she traveled in the US and abroad and met noted figures of the day including John Hancock and George Washington.

These bright-eyed kids attend a school located in a tough corner of Brooklyn and named in Phyllis Wheatley's honor. Caught on a class trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, they display the energy and imagination "to scan the heights" -- and more than a bit of youthful, joyful hamminess.


Three friends


Doing a split


Handstand


Deep dimples


Break dancing


Smiling boy

Women in History: Phyllis Wheatley

Poems of Phyllis Wheatley

The Complete Writings of Phyllis Wheatley

New York School Directory: Phyllis Wheatley Academy

Inside Schools: Phyllis Wheatley Academy

The Metropolitan Museum of Art