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Italians in New York City

New York City has the largest population of Italian Americans in the United States as well as North America, many of whom inhabit ethnic enclaves in Brooklyn, the Bronx, Manhattan, Queens, and Staten Island. New York is home to the third largest Italian population outside of Italy, behind Buenos Aires, Argentina (first) and São Paulo, Brazil (second). Over 2.6 million[1] Italians and Italian-Americans live in the greater New York metro area, with about 800,000 living within one of the five New York City boroughs. This makes Italian Americans the largest ethnic group in the New York metro area.

Fiorello La Guardia was mayor of New York City 1934-1946 as a Republican. A 1993 survey of historians, political scientists and urban experts conducted by Melvin G. Holli of the University of Illinois at Chicago saw La Guardia ranked as the best American big-city mayor to serve between the years 1820 and 1993.[2]

The first Italian to reside in New York was Pietro Cesare Alberti,[3] a Venetian seaman who, in 1635, settled in the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam that would eventually become New York. A small wave of Protestants, known as Waldensians, who were of French and northern Italian heritage (specifically Piedmontese), occurred during the 17th century, with the majority coming between 1654 and 1663.[4] A 1671 Dutch record indicates that, in 1656 alone, the Duchy of Savoy near Turin, Italy, had exiled 300 Waldensians due to their Protestant faith.

The largest wave of Italian immigration to the United States took place in the late 19th century and early 20th century. Between 1820 and 1978, 5.3 million Italians immigrated to the United States, including over two million between 1900 and 1910. However, most planned a short stay to make money, and about half returned to Italy.

  1. ^ "The Demographic Statistical Atlas of the United States - Statistical Atlas". statisticalatlas.com. Retrieved 2021-01-05.
  2. ^ Holli, Melvin G. (1999). The American Mayor. University Park: PSU Press. ISBN 0-271-01876-3.
  3. ^ "Peter Caesar Alberti". Archived from the original on September 14, 2015. Retrieved June 2, 2011.
  4. ^ Memorials of the Huguenots in America, by Ammon Stapleton, page 42