Nolita Explained

40.7225°N -73.9952°W

Nolita, sometimes written as NoLIta and deriving from "North of Little Italy",^{[1] [2] [3]} is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. Nolita is situated in Lower Manhattan, bounded on the north by Houston Street, on the east by the Bowery, on the south roughly by Broome Street, and on the west by Lafayette Street.^[4] It lies east of SoHo, south of NoHo, west of the Lower East Side, and north of Little Italy and Chinatown.^[5]

History and description

The neighborhood was long regarded as part of Little Italy, but has lost its recognizable Italian character in recent decades because of rapidly rising rents. The Feast of San Gennaro, dedicated to Saint Januarius ("Pope of Naples"), is held in the neighborhood every year following Labor Day, on Mulberry Street between Houston and Grand Streets.^[6] The feast, as recreated on Elizabeth Street between Prince and Houston Streets, was featured in the film The Godfather Part II.

In the second half of the 1990s, the neighborhood saw an influx of yuppies and an explosion of expensive retail boutiques and restaurants and bars. After unsuccessful tries to pitch it as part of SoHo, real estate promoters and others came up with several different names for consideration for this newly upscale neighborhood. The name that stuck, as documented in an article on May 5, 1996, in the New York Times city section debating various monikers for the newly trendy area, was Nolita, an abbreviation for North of Little Italy.^[7] This name follows the pattern started by SoHo (South of Houston Street) and TriBeCa (Triangle Below Canal Street).^[8]

The neighborhood includes St. Patrick's Old Cathedral, at the intersection of Mulberry, Mott, and Prince Streets, which opened in 1815 and was rebuilt in 1868 after a fire.^[9] The cornerstone was laid on June 8, 1809. This building served as New York City's Roman Catholic cathedral until the new St. Patrick's Cathedral was opened on Fifth Avenue in Midtown in 1879.^[10] St. Patrick's Old Cathedral is now a parish church. In 2010, St. Patrick's Old Cathedral was honored and became The Basilica at St. Patrick's Old Cathedral.

The Puck Building, a nine-story-high ornate structure built in 1885 on the corner of Houston and Lafayette Streets, originally housed the headquarters of the now-defunct Puck Magazine.^[11]

Since 2010, a Little Australia has emerged and is growing in Nolita on Mulberry Street and Mott Street.^[12]

Notable residents

• David Bowie and his wife, Iman, had a home here.^[13]
• Actor Gabriel Byrne lives here.^[14]
• Vanessa Carlton's song "Nolita Fairytale" was inspired by her two years in the neighborhood.^[15]
• Moby lived here.^[16]
• John Mayer owns an apartment here, featured in Elle Decor magazine.^[17]
• Martin Scorsese was raised here on Elizabeth Street between Prince and Houston, where his Italian grandparents also lived when it was Little Italy.^[18]
• Actor David Harbour has a loft here.^[19]

See also

• Little Australia

External links

• Elizabeth Street Garden

Notes and References

1. Roberts, Sam. "New York’s Little Italy, Littler by the Year" New York Times (February 21, 2011)
2. Hughes, C.J. "Bigger Condos, North of Littler Italy" New York Times (May 4, 2008)
3. According to the Italian American Museum on Mulberry Street, it stands for "NOrthern Little ITAly" News: The food battle for New York's Little Italy . David . Farley . The Los Angeles Times . September 4, 2011 . 2011-09-06.
4. News: Jacobson. Aileen. June 22, 2016. NoLIta: Mixing Hip and Historic. en-US. The New York Times. https://web.archive.org/web/20211115032539/https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/26/realestate/nolita-mixing-hip-and-historic.html. November 15, 2021. 0362-4331.
5. http://nymag.com/realestate/articles/neighborhoods/noho.htm "Neighborhood Profile: Nolita & Little Italy"
6. Web site: About San Gennaro. Feast of San Gennaro. 5 October 2012. dead. https://web.archive.org/web/20130115220557/http://sangennaro.org/about.htm. 15 January 2013.
7. News: Colman. David. May 5, 1996. Trendiness Invades Little Italy. Got a Problem With That?. The New York Times. January 19, 2021.
8. News: Sternbergh. Adam. April 8, 2010. Soho. Nolita. Dumbo. NoMad?. New York. November 15, 2021. Since the coining of Soho, dozens of Balkanized slivers of Manhattan and Brooklyn have been diced up, claimed, and either renamed (Nolita, Noho, Soha) or simply reimagined (the meatpacking district, Williamsburg, Park Slope)..
9. , p.42
10. Farley, John Murphy. (1908). History of St. Patrick's Cathedral Society for the propagation of the faith. pp. 127–128, 130, 151.
11. http://www.nyc-architecture.com/SOH/SOH037.htm Puck Building
12. Web site: G-day! Welcome to Little Australia in New York City. Shaun Busuttil. KarryOn. November 3, 2016. May 23, 2019. In Little Australia, Australian-owned cafes are popping up all over the place (such as Two Hands), joining other Australian-owned businesses (such as nightclubs and art galleries) as part of a growing green and gold contingent in NYC. Indeed, walking in this neighbourhood, the odds of your hearing a fellow Aussie ordering a coffee or just kicking back and chatting are high – very high – so much so that if you’re keen to meet other Aussies whilst taking your own bite out of the Big Apple, then this is the place to throw that Australian accent around like it’s going out of fashion!.
13. http://www.fashionmodeldirectory.com/news/Model+News/still-ties-shoes-for-iman-reveals-how-david-bowie-makes-her-feel-special.htm Iman
14. Polsky, Sara (April 30, 2010). "Actor Gabriel Byrne Buys in Nolita's 211 Elizabeth". Curbed.
15. Brill, Lauren. "One On One With Vanessa Carlton". WNBA.com (July 11, 2007)
16. News: He's Sensitive About the Pancakes . Lizette . Alvarez . The New York Times . March 25, 2010 . 2010-07-18.
17. Hackett, Kathleen. "At home with John Mayer" Elle Decor (ndg)
18. Binelli. Mark. December 8, 2019. Arrivederci, Little Italy. The New Yorker. November 15, 2021.
19. https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/david-harbour-nyc-loft