Victor Papa arrived clutching a cup of coffee from Veselka and came bearing gifts from the Doughnut Plant. The grizzled veteran of the Lower East Side gentrification wars brought something else to an urban planning lecture at Columbia University a few weeks ago: some strong opinions about the future of Little Italy. At least a few of the students gathered to discuss the fading ethnic enclaves of Lower Manhattan were more than a little skeptical.

Papa is one of several familiar downtown figures invited this semester to appear before Professor Douglas Woodward’s graduate course on the development and decline of ethnic areas such as the Lower East Side, Chinatown and Little Italy.

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Source: http://www.thelodownny.com/