NEWS FROM : NEW YORK  

Community Board 2 on Sept. 21 unanimously approved a street co-naming sign at the southwest corner of Mulberry and Grand Streets for “Vinny Peanuts”. The board’s resolution supports co-naming the spot “Vincent ‘Vinny Peanuts’ Cirelli Sabatino Corner.” It’s a lot to fit on one street sign — but “Vinny Peanuts” meant a lot to the community. Sabatino,...

After being uprooted from her life in Italy in 1968, Rita Monte turned to poetry to express how she felt about leaving her home country, which led her to a world of like-minded poets. Monte wrote her first poem, called “Italia,” upon arriving from her native land at the age of 12. She has won several poetry contests, with some of her work being fea...

For a quarter century now Settepani has been on the corner of Malcolm X (formerly Lenox) Boulevard and 120th Street, yet to pass it you would think it just opened weeks ago as part of the ongoing gentrification of this part of Harlem. Settepani was founded by Ethiopian-Eritrean immigrant Leah Abraham and her Sicilian husband chef Nino Settepani, wh...

A few years ago, we heard about the project for a bridge across the Strait of Messina. It had been drawn up by a group of professionals who, I believe at the modest cost of 300 million euros, envisaged a copy of San Francisco’s Golden Gate. It was a disgrace on several counts. The most serious being: “Italy does not copy.” More recently, Italy’s pr...

In December 2021, New York’s MacDougal Street wine bar and restaurant, Niche Niche, had the privilege of hosting Rome’s renowned Salumeria Roscioli for a brief pop-up event. Little did anyone know that this momentous occasion would sow the seeds of a remarkable partnership. Two years down the road, they celebrate the birth of the very first Rosciol...

Every September for the past ninety-seven years, thousands upon thousands descend on Mulberry Street in Manhattan’s venerable Little Italy for “a festa ‘e tutte ‘e feste”—“The Feast of All Feasts”… the eleven-day celebration that is the Feast of San Gennaro! This year, the Italian American Podcast is celebrating the Patron Saint of Napoli- and one...

The Italian bakery Forno Tony, which was a viral sensation for just a few weeks last fall, has finally found a new home. The bakery known especially for its authentic Roman pizzas will open at 1344 University Ave. ― the same building that houses the new Black Button Distilling tasting room. Brothers Billy and Ryan Gushue opened Forno Tony at the co...

It began its life as a computer chip warehouse facility off of Route 9 in Cold Spring, New York, a small town with a Metro-North train station and a few restaurants on its main street. Magazzino means “warehouse” in Italian, playing off this industrial past of the site, but the Magazzino Italian Art museum has been committed to refined elegance sin...

The Beacon City School District is changing the name of Columbus Day on all its calendars and documents. The Beacon School Board was recently approached by a resident about concerns over Columbus Day. That one resident's concerns led the board to create a special six-person committee to figure out how the district should recognize the second Monday...

Huddled together on a snakeskin couch in a New York hotel, their euphoria was infectious. Måneskin just played a pop-up lunchtime show in Times Square, and now they learned their Madison Square Garden show scheduled for later in the week was a sellout. Pleasantly surprised, frontman Damiano David called the news “very special.” “It’s one of the mos...

The New York City cultural and culinary landmark Delmonico's reopened Monday following a three-year closure from the COVID pandemic. City officials say Delmonico's was the first fine dining restaurant in the city when it opened in 1837 on Beaver Street. It has since survived the Prohibition Era, September 11th and Hurricane Sandy. Over the years, i...

Michael Mann’s racing drama “Ferrari” is set to close the 61st annual New York Film Festival. The sports biopic, starring Adam Driver as automotive mogul Enzo Ferrari, will make its North American premiere at Alice Tully Hall on Oct. 13. Michael Mann (“Heat,” “The Last of the Mohicans”) directed “Ferrari,” which is adapted from the 1991 biography “...