When Gennaro Lombardi founded his pizzeria Lombardi’s in 1905, Little Italy was an area full of thieves, murderers, and eventually, pizza makers. Of the two million Italians who arrived in the United States from 1900 to 1910, thousands packed themselves into tenement buildings in the nearby Five Points neighborhood. Vendors sold their fruits and vegetables on the streets of the neighborhood that residents called “Mulberry Bend.”

Today, 116 years after Gennaro Lombardi opened his restaurant at 53 Spring Street, Little Italy is full of trendy and traditional Italian restaurants. Tourists and New York residents alike travel to Lombardi’s, the first pizzeria in the country according to the Pizza Hall of Fame, for quality ingredients that promise quality food.