I don’t know if it was ever officially considered a Little Italy. But in the 1930s and 1940s, East 29th Street between Second and Third Avenues was an Italian food store stronghold. V. DiPollito’s meat market; Peter Rossi’s salami, olive oil, and baccala; a fruits and vegetables grocery; and a delicatessen/bakery are just some of the ground floor tenement stores with untidy cloth sidewalk awnings crowding the south side of the block.

In the middle of these shops is the latticini at 226 East 29th Street. Latticini translates into “dairy products,” as many New Yorkers know from the days when this word was routinely found on Little Italy store signs. (RIP, Joe’s Dairy off Houston Street!) This kind of shop made and sold fresh diary foods, mainly cheese.