Today during my borough wandering in the Bronx (I was visiting offsite clinics), I finally found Little Italy in the Bronx. This has been a location that I've been yearning to visit ever since I found out about it last year. I knew it was up here, somewhat near the hospital, and I ask my coworkers about it all the time, but I hadn't seen it until today. I asked my cab driver where it was and he took me right by it. He was a Puerto Rican guy and he grew up in the area. Apparently, when he was young, nobody walked through that part of town because if you were Mexican or Puerto Rican or African-American, you'd get beat to a pulp walking in that area. Italians only. For those of you who are up-to-date on your mafia knowledge, this was John Gotti's (think Tony Soprano) part of town. He ruled it and would come to that part of town with a car full of toys for the kids. Sure sounds like a nice guy....
Anyway, on my way back to the hospital, I had to stop there and have lunch. So I walked around a bit and realized how much more authentic this is than Manhattan's Little Italy. There were lots of bakeries and pasta shops selling fresh, homemade pasta, which piqued my interest. I've read about there being butcher shops, sausage makers, cheese makers, seafood markets, bakeries with 19th century ovens, pasta stores, restaurants and produce markets, and much much more in this part of town. Sounds like a good candidate for a little weekend road trip - three mass transit connections and about two hours to get there.
J. Riley, full of cheese raviolis - and not the Chef Boyardee (sp.?) kind.
Did they have any of those yummy Olive Garden bread sticks? Next time ask - that'd probably get you beat up pretty darn quick. I'm impressed with the "experience to blog" time on this one. Lunch was only three and a half hours ago.
ReplyDelete-Paul
"When you're here, you're family."
So, when you think Italian, do you think of anything else? Like 3 girls staying in your tiny apartment for 10 days, one of them BEING Italian and wanting soooooo badly to check out Little Italy? You should have found this BEFORE we visited!!!!
ReplyDelete~Susannah
Yea, sorry for being such a bad host. Next time you come, I promise I'll take you to the ghettos that you want so bad to see. And don't forget that my coworker volunteered to show you girls around his neighborhood in Brooklyn when you were here ;-)
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