We presented the first issue of Good Morning Italy, the new English-language magazine from the ilNewyorkese network, with an event at the Italian American Museum in Little Italy, New York. We chose the Italian American Museum because the institution, founded by Dr. Joseph Scelsa, has long worked to preserve the history of Italians in the United States, in one of the neighborhoods that more than almost any other helped shape the image of Italian immigration in New York. Presenting a new magazine dedicated to contemporary Italy and the Italian American community there meant bringing together the memory of a historic presence and the attempt to tell what it means today to be Italian, or to feel connected to Italy, outside Italy’s borders.
The evening was moderated by the network’s founder, Davide Ippolito, and by Premium Pete, podcast pioneer and key figure in the media world. The conversation touched on roots, family, immigration, ambition and belonging, but also on the way Italian identity is reworked by those who live and work in international contexts. This is an important point, because when people talk about Italian identity abroad, there is always the risk of remaining stuck in a nostalgic or purely celebratory representation, made up of pasta, the sea, the sun, a leaning tower or a very large amphitheater, and little else. Good Morning Italy tries to move in another direction: telling stories of people, paths and communities, without reducing them to symbols.
Among the speakers was Dr. Joseph Scelsa, who spoke about the museum’s role as a place of preservation but also of generational passage. The idea is that Italian American history is not only something to be protected in archival form, but also material that new generations can reread and use to better understand their place in American society. On a different level, Italian-American tenor Christopher Macchio, one of the world’s leading tenors, who in 2025 had the honor of singing the American national anthem at the inauguration of Donald Trump’s presidency, spoke about Italian music as an emotional and cultural language, able to hold together family memory and public recognition. Model Elena Azzaro also took part, contributing a reflection on fashion and entertainment, and explaining how the Italian image continues to circulate in highly competitive fields, where elegance and identity can easily become empty formulas if they are not supported by a real path.
Armand Assante, one of the most important and celebrated Italian-American actors of all time, winner of an Emmy Award for his portrayal of John Gotti in the series Gotti, and a four-time Golden Globe nominee, also attended the presentation, linking the theme of identity to discipline and the construction of a career. During the event, a video message was also shown from Fabrizio Brienza, the Italian actor, model and influencer based in New York, who was chosen as the cover figure. The cover story follows his path between Italy, entertainment and New York nightlife: a trajectory built outside the most predictable routes, which we used in the magazine to discuss Italian identity in a less conventional form.
The first issue of Good Morning Italy brings together interviews and conversations with a wide range of figures, including Riccardo Silva, Kathrine Narducci, Gianluca Passi, Francesco Facchinetti and the already mentioned Premium Pete, Christopher Macchio, Elena Azzaro and Armand Assante. What connects these names is not only personal success, but their relationship with Italy as an origin, a cultural reference point or a symbolic space to reinterpret. After the presentation, the evening continued with a reception at Ferrara Bakery, hosted by Ernest Lepore and the Lepore family, still in the heart of Little Italy. This choice also had a precise meaning: closing the launch in one of the historic addresses of the Italian presence in the neighborhood.
