Little Italy merchants are screaming “Mi offendo!” after learning Gov. Kathy Hochul awarded a $20 million economic and tourism grant to their Chinatown neighbors, The Post has learned. Civil leaders in Little Italy said they weren’t even asked to jointly apply for the state grant even though their businesses suffered alongside Chinatown’s during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“After what our nation has experienced in the most recent past concerning issues of equity, who would believe that the State of New York would favor one ethnic Manhattan community, in this case Chinatown, to the detriment by exclusion and apart from its neighboring ethnic community, Little Italy?” Victor Papa, chairman of the Chinatown-Little Italy Historic District Improvement Association, wrote in a March 8 letter to Hochul.