NEW YORK, July 13 (Our New York News) — New York City will add Little Italy to its public-facing immigrant-enclaves map after criticism from Italian American leaders and City Council members over the neighborhood’s omission, Mayor Zohran Mamdani said Friday.
Speaking at an unrelated Manhattan press conference, Mamdani said the map “was initially created by the prior administration in 2023” and that his team added neighborhoods after inheriting it. He said the list is “not an exhaustive” account of the city’s more than 200 ethnic communities and that additional changes would be made, including Little Italy.
The city’s map highlights 30 immigrant communities across the five boroughs, including Koreatown, Little Pakistan and Little Yemen, but it did not include Little Italy in Manhattan’s Lower Manhattan area.
The New York City Council’s Italian Caucus said the omission was “incomplete at best and insulting at worst” and argued that the city could not tell the story of immigrant New York while erasing one of its most prominent immigrant communities. Staten Island Borough President Vito Fossella also criticized the omission, saying, “Ignorance is not a good ingredient for highlighting the sacrifices of so many who built this City and gave so much.”
Mike Crispi, president of the Italian American Civil Rights League, called the omission “cultural erasure.”
A city spokesperson said the immigrant enclave series began during former Mayor Eric Adams’ administration and that more neighborhoods are planned in the coming months.
