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Thanksgiving, that quintessential American holiday, was not easily understood by the original group of Italian settlers who came from a place that had no comparable celebration. Easter and Christmas were easily transferable; everyone celebrated here in America just as they had in their native towns and villages. But Thanksgiving was connected to Am...

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I always wondered how it came to be that there were five churches within the geographic area of Wooster Square. One of them, St. Paul’s Episcopal Church (now St. Paul and St. James), on the corner of Chapel and Olive streets, was actually a vestige from the time when the area was predominantly Yankee and Protestant. It is a beautiful stone church v...

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A charitable organization made up of Italian-American women has sued the city, seeking to bring back the Christopher Columbus statue to Wooster Square Park. The American Italian Women for Greater New Haven claim in the suit that the city, through Mayor Justin Elicker and the Board of Parks Commissioners, among others, violated their rights to due p...

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Instead of a Columbus Day parade, a concert complete with Italian-American song and food was held recently in North Haven. Organizers said the pandemic made it impractical to hold a large parade as in years prior to 2020. Another hurdle the newly formed Greater New Haven Italian American Heritage Committee faced was the controversy following the re...

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You could forgive restaurateur Moe Gad if he had second thoughts about opening his latest venture, Villa Lulu. The decision to open the restaurant in a College Street space formerly occupied by the Samurai Japanese Restaurant was made before pandemic hit the state, sending a chill through the economy. But Gad, who in 2004 had bet on New Haven’s res...

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Yale University says the decades-old debate over the authenticity of its controversial Vinland Map has been settled: It's a fake. The map was donated to the school in 1965, presented as a purported 15th-century depiction of the New World, which would have made it the earliest. At the time, scholars at Yale and other institutions considered it evide...

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There won’t be a Columbus Day parade again this year, but the region’s Italian Americans plan to celebrate their rich heritage in a new way. “We had to kind of scale back, but we’re praying and hoping” to revive the parade in 2022, said Laura Florio Luzzi, chairwoman of the parade committee. “The town of East Haven is very excited about us coming.”...

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New Haven’s newest Italian offering opened last week in downtown.  Villa Lulu, the product of seasoned restaurateur Moe Gad, opened on Wednesday at a ribbon-cutting ceremony outside of the restaurant’s location at 230 College St. The modern Italian eatery, which boasts a diverse menu of pastas, salads and classic Italian entrees, is Gad’s second re...

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Some might say Nina Pane Sanseverino sang like an angel — in Italian and English — for decades before she become one. Pane Sanseverino, one of Greater New Haven’s cultural gifts to the world, was both one of a kind and one of the last of a kind — an Italian-American cultural icon who for generations helped keep alive a style of Italian music known...

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Claire Criscuolo, owner of Claire’s Corner Copia, will hold a “Cooking for CASA” Italian Antipasti Party over Zoom on Friday, according to a release. Folks who register for the event will receive an ingredient list and a link to the Zoom presentation, which will benefit “Connecticut CASA — whose volunteer Court Appointed Special Advocates work with...

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