Boston's North End: Images And Recollections of an Italian-American Neighborhood

by Anthony V. Riccio

Illustrated with nearly 200 vintage photos of Boston''s North End, this book presents a delightful and fascinating social history of one of the last intact Italian-American neighborhoods in the United States. It is the result of many years of interviewing hundreds of Italian immigrants--the last custodians of the ancient oral tradition transported from Italy--who at the turn of the last century left their rural homeland, carrying their Old World contadino customs and beliefs to the North End, and transformed the urban ghetto of Boston into a Little Italy.

These stories are vivid recollections about the immigrants'' life experiences in Italy and the New World. It reveals the remarkable working history of Italian immigrant men and women, the assimilation of these people into the American way of life, the old traditions that they adapted to their new surroundings, and their undying loyalty to family. The North End community''s transformation after the 1980s'' urban redevelopment is also addressed in many of the oral histories.

Many people granted the author access to prized family albums containing a wealth of unpublished photographs of the old neighborhood in the North End. This book was written to fulfill the wish of one North End "So that people will never forget us."

Genres: Nonfiction, History

180 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2006

Reviews

[Msimone · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book is a collection of interviews from the 1970s with elder résidents of the North End of Boston who provide pictures of their families in Italy and while they lived in the North End. Family stories include descriptions of endured hardships in Italy that spurred the immigration to America of the late 19th and early 20th century. Residents remember their experiences of starting life in a neighborhood that held on to Italian language and customs. The chronology of their expériences goes from the late 19th century to the 1980s and includes the corrosive effects of urbanization on the Italian way of life. The decrease of new immigration, led to the eventual de-italianization of the neighborhood, and the sadness of the remaining elderly who did not leave the nieghborhood. They have only the memories of the old italian neighbors and families who have moved away or died, and faced with the reality of high rents wait for an apartment to be available in elderly housing in order to remain in the neighborhood. The book hold interest as a history of the gradual dying out of a neighborhood as a result of urbanization and decreased immigration by Italians to the North End.

[Jenn Adams · Rating 4 out of 5]

Delightful collection of interviews with elderly folks living in the North End ~1970s/80s? Primary source snapshots of what life was like moving to and living there.