There is a corner of Rome in the cafes of Williamsburg, a fragment of Naples in the markets of Arthur Avenue, a whisper of Florence along the Hudson at sunset. New York, a city that never sleeps, has always welcomed Italians like a passionate lover: with frenzy, with opportunity but also with the promise of an embrace that tastes like home. Today, among the neon lights of Manhattan and the hidden courtyards of Brooklyn, a new generation of Italians writes love stories with this city, mixing the melancholy of remoteness with the thrill of reinventing themselves.
The first coffee, the first look.
You recognize them right away. They are the ones who order an espresso at the bar with a half-smile, almost apologizing for the request. “A little tighter, please,” they say in English, but with an accent that betrays the South, the North, the islands. Then, when the first sip reaches their lips, they close their eyes: it is almost like being in Milan, in Palermo, in Trieste. Almost.
New York is never really “almost.”
It is a city that asks everything of you, but in return gives you worlds. Immense ones. So, between a tech startup in SoHo and a gourmet pizza lab in Bushwick, young Italians fall in love with the noise of subway trains, jazz nights in Harlem, lit bridges that seem to hang in the sky. And then, inevitably, they fall in love with each other. Or with someone who speaks another language, who comes from another continent, but who shares the same dream: to feel at home, anywhere.
In the homes of Italians in New York, cooking is always an act of love. There are those who grow basil on the windowsill, those who have their grandmother send them pecorino cheese, pasta from Gragnano, and those who try to replicate the recipe for orecchiette by watching a YouTube video because perhaps the family is far away and cannot teach it. When the weekend arrives, the many Italian friends gather in cramped but bustling apartments. They talk about work, residence permits, the price of rent. Then, as if by magic, cell phones go off and dialect words return, laughter bursting like fireworks, dishes passing from hand to hand.
Someone lights a guitar, someone sings Battisti or De André, someone dances. Outside, the city runs. Inside, for a night, time stands still. It is in these moments that New York resembles the country you left behind: noisy, warm, full of life.
Italians in New York know that love has wings here. You meet someone at a subway stop, in an art gallery, at a rooftop party. The land of ” anything is possible.” He is American, she is from Korea, they are an Italian-Argentinean couple. Stories are born between fusion dinners, train rides to a concert, walks in Central Park where autumn tints the trees like a Caravaggio painting. There are those who fall hopelessly in love, those who desperately seek a stable connection (of heart and phone network), those who write poetry on the subway. And there are those who, after years, decide to return to Italy, taking with them a piece of New York: a name, an accent, a way of looking at the world that will never be the same again.
New York is us: the Italians.
This city was built by dreamers, and we have been a part of it for generations. Today, however, they are no longer just the workers who dug the subway tunnels or the grandparents who opened the first stores in Little Italy. They are artists, chefs, engineers, students. People who carry in their DNA the sweetness of a sunset on the Amalfi Coast and the grit of an unforgiving metropolis, and the skills we have always been able to demonstrate.
And perhaps that is the strength: being able to mix Mediterranean passion with the frenetic pace of New York. They love with the same intensity with which they work, they fight with the fire of those who know how to make peace with a hug, and they know that, despite the skyscrapers and the challenges, a piece of their heart will remain forever in the alleys of Rome … or on the benches of Brooklyn, hand in hand with someone who will one day learn to say “I love you” in Italian.
This is the big Apple! Thank you New York.
The article Stories of Italy among New York skyscrapers: love and success comes from TheNewyorker.
