New York City Tours by Urban Oyster

Manhattan’s Lower East Side offers a wealth of opportunities to explore the neighborhood’s past - the Tenement Museum, the Museum at Eldridge Street, St. Augustine's Project and the Museum of Chinese in America, for example, give visitors a glimpse of the various communities that have and continue to occupy the neighborhood. Add to that list the Italian American Museum, which just celebrated its first anniversary this past Columbus Day.

The museum is located on the corner of Mulberry and Grand streets in the former home of the Stabile Bank, founded in 1885 by Francesco Stablie, an Italian native who came to the United States following Italy’s wars of unification. Though the bank is no longer operating, the Stablie family does still hold real estate in the neighborhood, including the Stabile Annex building across Mulberry Street - Angelo’s restaurant is on the bottom floor. The museum’s website says this about the bank’s history, and its links to the museum’s current mission:

"It was a link for the Immigrants in the United States with their relatives in Italy. In addition to a full range of banking services, it also provided the following services: telegraph, travel via steam ships, import-export, notary public, and post office; a kind of all in one immigrant community service center. It has been restored and preserved, and is now open to the public. It now serves as the cornerstone of the Italian American Museum from which we will tell our story in America."

Currently the museum only occupies the first floor of the bank, but what it lacks in space it more than makes up for with its personal, intimate approach. The museum’s founder and president, Dr. Joseph C. Scelsa, keeps his office right on the exhibit floor and is happy to speak with visitors about the museum’s founding and future and is enthusiastic about attracting new visitors to this labor of love. The exhibits largely feature artifacts recovered from the bank itself, and the pay stubs, steam ship tickets and telegrams tell a fascinating story of this turn-of-the-century community.

The museum’s current exhibit is on Italian-Americans in law enforcement. The centerpiece of this exhibit is the story of Joseph Petrosino, a New York City police lietuenant who was assassinated while on a mission to Palermo, Sicily in pursuit of New York Mafia kingpin Don Vito Cascio Ferro. When he departed New York in March 1909, his mission had been announced to the press, and the Sicilian mafia was waiting for him, murdering him soon after his arrival on March 12. Petrosino had already gained notoriety for his investigations of the mafia and the anarchist organization the Black Hand. He was a celebrated figure for becoming the highest-ranking Italian-American on the police force, and after he was killed, 250,000 attended his funeral in New York. In 1912, his story was made into a film, The Adventures of Lieutenant Petrosino, one of the first feature-length films made in the United States. The film was directed by Sidney M. Goldin, a prominent director of Yiddish theater on the Lower East Side who would go on to direct several Yiddish features, including Uncle Moses and The Cantor’s Son.

Frank Serpico, the New York City police officer immortalized by Al Pacino, is also featured in the exhibit. Serpico rose to fame by publicizing widespread corruption within the police department in 1970. In February 1971, he was shot in the face during a routine drug bust, which may have been a set up, as none of the other officers on the scene followed him or radioed for help after he had been shot. Serpico survived the incident and went on to testify before the Knapp Commission to Investigate Alleged Police Corruption later that year, which ushered in huge reforms in the department. For the exhibition, Serpico was kind enough to donate several of his personal effects from his time on the force, including several of his service weapons.

So, the next time you are in the Little Italy, stop by the Italian-American Museum so that they can continue to grow and contribute to the rich history of the Lower East Side.

-- Andrew Gustafson