Neighborhood Brief: Arthur Avenue

The space that Little Italy now occupies was originally called “Belle Mont,” or “Beautiful Mountain” in Latin, which was the estate of a family of French tobacco manufacturers¹. The family bought the tract of land in 1778, after the head of the household, Pierre Lorillard was killed during the Revolutionary War. The estate was 661 acres, and its centerpiece was the Lorillard mansion, which was built in the 1850s and was donated to become St. Barnabas Hospital and Medical Center. The estate was inherited by a niece, Catherine Lorillard Wolfe, in 1870, effectively making her the richest woman in America at the time. She sold off portions of the estate; one was divided into streets and avenues, others were transformed into the Bronx Zoo and the Botanical Gardens. Construction at both sites began in 1898, enticing newly arrived Italian immigrants with the possibility of employment at the zoos or the gardens. By 1913, the former estate became known as the Italian colonies in the Bronx because the Italians had already established themselves as the majority, with a Jewish population present as well. During Prohibition, the Bronx, along with the rest United States, saw a rise of the mafia and bootleggers of all nationalities. From the 1930s to the 1960s, people left in droves to different places; those who could afford it moved to the suburbs. This was all part of the urban decline of the neighborhood, which culminated finally in the 1960s and 1970s in many landlords burning down their buildings to collect insurance. As many of the mainstay ethnic groups left the neighborhood, the first wave of Albanian immigration to America began, in the 1960s and 1970s². With many cheap apartments and housing available, Albanian immigrants adopted the practice of the former Jewish inhabitants had formerly used in the beginning of their Bronx residency—that is, buying out cheap apartments in bulk. That strategy has not been unsuccessful for the Albanians either. One third of all apartments are owned by Albanians, with some having made fortunes off of this enterprise. For example, Hajdar Bajraktari immigrated into the Bronx after college, having started from scratch at the time, but he now is a millionaire with many buildings bought under his name. He isn’t the only one as for who occupies the highest class in the Bronx, there are more Albanians than Italians living in Little Italy.

Albanians have immigrated to America in several waves, with the most prominent of which having had occurred from the early 1960s and late 1970s to the beginning of the twenty-first century. Under communism, but more specifically, under the country’s dictator Enver Hoxha, who had ruled over the country for over 40 years, the country suffered a high degree of poverty. Under his totalitarian, 1 out of 15 people were pronounced enemies of the state and were sent to one of the many state prisons established by Hoxha, which were made to be like the gulags used in communist Russia³. In these state prisons, inmates were forced to to work on the government’s mining and construction projects, and many died as a result of appalling conditions.” Coupled with this cruelty towards citizens, indoctrination of children oftentimes led to parents being arrested and sent to jail as a result of being spied upon by their own children. The isolation of the country from the rest of the world stopped it from receiving aid that it could have used due to unsuccessful ventures to increase wealth and give jobs to its citizens⁴. This overall ill treatment of its people left many Albanians disenchanted and frustrated with their old way of life. Many were glad to leave when they were given the chance to, and that chance came between 1990 and 1995, shortly after the fall of communism in Albania. Around this time, about 7,000 Albanians immigrated to America,⁵ the fear that had held many back from leaving Albania having finally dissipated—no longer was there a threat of the government executing their family. This exodus to America was connected with a much larger one in which 500,000 Albanians left their homeland. Emigration was further augmented by the ethnic conflict between Serbians and Kosovar Albanians, leading to one million Albanians displaced from their homeland. As a result, annual immigration to America averaged more than 4,100 people between 1996 and 2002, bringing the total number of Albanians in the United States from 47,710 in 1990 to 113,661 in 2000. In addition, the US government granted 20,000 annual refugee visas with “preference given to those with family connections in the United States.” Since the Bronx had had a large Albanian population at the time, many flocked there to make connections with former emigrants and find jobs.

Little Italy on Arthur Avenue is a tiny oasis in the Bronx surrounded on all sides by neighborhoods seeing much fewer tourists. The neighborhood is narrow—it is only about 5 paces wide. The main road is surrounded by authentic Italian, “Italian” (managed or staffed by Albanian) and openly Albanian restaurants. The best place to park your car is in the municipal parking space behind the restaurant Giovanni’s. It is attended by a local who is perhaps not employed by the city but still helps drivers find a parking spot, and he does “accept tips.” Although the parking lot has meters, they don’t accept anything except coins, and so if you’re lacking you or the driver is obliged to become preemptively familiar with the neighborhood to at least make change before you order your meal—at least that is what most of the tourists that come to Little Italy are there for. People come from upstate and the rest of the five boroughs look for the traditional Italian experience and rediscover this little enclave of old Italy, even though it, like the other Little Italy in Manhattan, has been taken over by the next wave of immigrants.

I was sitting in an Albanian restaurant eating cevape—a Yugoslavian meat dish—with my father and brother when my father’s friend, Haxhi Berishe, showed up. Haxhi is a medium sized man, of average height and skinny build, and has thinning hair and horn rimmed glasses. His eyes are small yet sharp, and his forehead is lined from the many expressions he had made during life. His voice exhumes confidence and yet he is not overly manly. Having lived in the Bronx for over 20 years, I assume that this last feature in particular is important to “making it” here. He sits down and has cevape with us. His first question to me is in Albanian, and my first answer is in English, as it has to be since that is the only language I speak fluently. Slowly we get to know one another. I learn that he teaches computer science at Monroe College, and he formerly worked at St. Barnabas hospital for 5 years, helping the hospital put up their computer system. He was educated in Fordham university, where obtained a degree in electrical engineering, and where he learned, out of all things, a love for Edgar Allen Poe’s poetry (he would later take me to see Poe’s former house in the Bronx after the tour). Upon learning that I started college, he asked me a few more questions, which I tried to answer. Having done so, he thought it would be good to have a go at describing the neighborhood, or at least some facet of it, but not without asking, in a slightly playful manner not out of touch, I thought, with his personality, “do you want to know about the good or the bad about this neighborhood?” Seeing that it is my duty to have a most accurate picture of this neighborhood, I reply back to him, “everything.” He then proceeded to tell me that the restaurant right across the street from the place we were eating in, on the corner of the block, was found to have the chopped remains of people as well as of animals in a police bust in the 1980s. After a lull in the conversation, we decided that it would be high time to leave the restaurant and begin our informal tour of the neighborhood.

“This neighborhood has seen some dark times, for sure,” Haxhi said, “especially with the drug addicts that have been present in the neighborhood for a while, but for the past ten years this has been a safe place to go to. Part of the trouble of this neighborhood is that near St. Barnabas medical center there is a place where addicts can get drugs out cleared out of their system quickly which has made them more likely to do more drugs because there is less of a perceived danger in doing drugs if the person doing them doesn’t suffer as much. It’s good that people get treatment, but it isn’t enough to make sure that they stop.”

“The streets usually have some students from Fordham University over, but since they’re having finals this week it’ll take some time before they come over again.” Perhaps one reason why Little Italy is safer is because Fordham University is so nearby. College options for the neighborhood are not sparse, since the Bronx offers a selection of private and public universities such as Fordham University, Lehman College, and Monroe College, where Haxhi teaches. “These schools educate the next generation of Albanian immigrants,’ Haxhi said, “and those kids work hard because they want a better life for their families. You can see a few of them really studying in the library for hours to get high marks.” For high school students, there is several schools within the vicinity that range from low test scores and graduation rates in the 40s such as Dewitt Clinton High school to Bronx Science High School, which boasts a high rank even among the specialized high schools. There seems to be some racial inequality, however, in education. “One of the worst schools in the Bronx,” Haxhi said as he pointed to Clinton DeWitt, passing by with car, “In Bronx Science you see an Asian majority, in DeWitt, there is an even greater majority who are African-American.”

One of the important tourist destinations in the neighborhood is the Arthur Avenue Market, or as the Albanians call it—Haxhi assures me—the “marketa.” This Italian bazaar features shops selling everything from electronics to traditional deli items, and alcohol to flowers. “This is what all tourists come to see,” Haxhi said. “It’s got this old Italian feeling, like how the shops used to line up around here a hundred years ago.” Although now its off peak hours, reflecting our night tour, this place usually has many tourists coming in to see what they’ve got here. The bazaar has a door out on Arthur Avenue and has the width of a normal Italian restaurant but its depth spans across the lot, giving an overall impression of it being a stowed away immigrant haven of years past.

As we walk across the block, Haxhi, with over 20 years experience in this neighborhood and its habitants, proceeds to point out which stores and restaurants are owned by whom and for how long. His face betrays an expression of pride to show me how many of the restaurants are either Albanian specialty stores, or owned, managed, or staffed by Albanians. There is a power balance that tips in the albanians favor here, mostly because there are more of them now, and also because they own more of the restaurants here. It seems as though the Albanians of yesterday have become the Italians of today, and their own spot is taken up by newer waves of Albanian or Hispanic immigrants that have slowly made themselves a presence in the neighborhood for the past few years. “A couple of years ago,” Haxhi said, “Blacks and Hispanics were definitely kept away by the Italians who used to live here. Now, it’s totally different. You look at the Albert Avenue Market, for instance, and you see that they cater to them to. The whole market is open at least two hours later than it used because it’s more convenient for some to come. This and the fact that many of them work here—who knows, maybe they’ll reach our positions soon.”

References

1. “Bronx Little Italy | Arthur Avenue.” Bronx Little Italy | Arthur Avenue. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 May 2016. <http://www.bronxlittleitaly.com/history/>.
2. ““Little Albania” in the Bronx | The Bronx Ink.” “Little Albania” in the Bronx | The Bronx Ink. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 May 2016. <http://bronxink.org/2011/12/15/21004-little-albania/nggallery/image/image-275/>.
3. The Atlantic. Atlantic Media Company, n.d. Web. 10 May 2016. <http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/12/victims-of-albanian-communism-struggle-for-closure/265956/>.
4. “Albania under the Command Economy.” Albania under the Command Economy. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 May 2016. <http://econc10.bu.edu/economic_systems/Economics/Economic_History/Albania/echist_albania.htm>.
5. “Albanian Immigration.” Immigration to North America. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 May 2016. <http://immigrationtous.net/10-albanian-immigration.html>.
6. “Arthur Avenue Market.” NYCEDC. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 May 2016. <http://www.nycedc.com/project/arthur-avenue-market>.