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On a perfect, sunny, summery October day, a few dozen people — many wearing the green, white and red colors the flag of Italy — sat out along the Main Street side of City Hall, listened to Italian music and honored Natalie Guiliano DeRosa as "Italian-American of the Year." Then they all moved on to the basement of City Hall to eat ziti, eggplant a...

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In the early 1900s, Hartford was a booming economic center. Italy, on the other hand, suffered both economically and socially. Hundreds of thousands of Italian men looked for unskilled work in other countries, with many eventually headed to the United States. Hartford's potential job opportunities attracted Italians and soon the city's number of im...

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By Tim Panzarella   Immigration is hot in presidential politics. On the left, Bernie Sanders denounces open borders as a right-wing conspiracy to pay migrants low wages at the expense of American workers. On the right, Donald Trump advocates deporting all undocumented workers.   This debate is nothing new. It once resonated in Connect...

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By Silvia Foster-Frau   "Electric, this is Blaise," Blaise Anello said into his mobile headset one morning this week, answering a business call above the clip-clopping of horse hooves on asphalt. Anello owns a one-man electric company, but most people don't know him for that. They know him as the guy who drives the horse-drawn carriage...

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By Erv Dworkin October is Italian-American Heritage Month and today is Columbus Day, a good time to examine the influence this classic European culture has had on our city. These seekers of New World opportunities brought with them Old World artisanal skills, entrepreneurism and cultural traditions that would enrich the simmering melting pot of Am...

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The New York Times' Patricia Brooks gave Cotto's Wine Bar and Pizzeria a "Very Good" rating in the newspaper's region section, published Friday online.   The Italian restaurant at 51 Bank St. has "had a good bit of success" at creating "the ambience of a Roman trattoria in downtown Stamford," Brooks wrote in her review.   Read more &...

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The leveling of the tomb of Jonah (think: whale) in Mosul, Iraq, last July, was a striking reminder of the fragility of our collective cultural inheritance. Have we nearly come full circle? In 1943, as Nazi Germany laid waste to much of Western Europe, Monuments Men-a handful of soldiers whose job it was to protect cultural heritage during wartime-...

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Anthony Riccio, author, photographer and oral historian, will speak about his book Farms, Factories and Families: Italian American Women of Connecticut Farms, Factories and Families.   This book documents the rich history of Italian American working women in Connecticut, including the crucial role they played in union organizing.   Re...

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By Adam Benson   A long-time civic leader and a popular Norwich Free Academy educator have been named the 2015 Italians of the Year. Rosario Presti and John Iovino will be honored by the Italian American Heritage and Cultural Committee at its annual Columbus Day banquet on Oct. 4 at the Norwich Holiday Inn.    Presti, who gr...

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Like a lot of folks, Steve Carcarey and his wife, Patrizia, looked forward to the Our Lady of Mount Carmel Italian Feast in Bridgeport every year.   But unlike others who can do no more than mourn the untimely end of the line for the nearly century-old event that would have been held this weekend, the couple is in a position to host a crowd-...

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