The city\u2019s \u201cNew York City Immigrant Enclaves\u201d guide highlights 30 neighborhoods across the five boroughs, from Koreatown in Manhattan to Little Pakistan in Brooklyn and Little Yemen in the Bronx. But among the omissions was Little Italy, the iconic Manhattan neighborhood long synonymous with Italian-American culture that remains one of the city\u2019s best-known tourist<\/a> destinations. The map also excluded notable Irish and Jewish immigrant neighborhoods.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is not a clerical error. This is cultural erasure,\u201d Mike Crispi, president of the Italian American Civil Rights League, said<\/a>. \u201cLittle Italy is sacred ground. It is where Italian immigrants came with nothing, worked like hell, opened shops, raised families, built churches, fed the city, and helped make New York<\/a> what it is.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMamdani\u2019s City Hall can find room for every fashionable progressive constituency, but somehow it cannot find Little Italy,\u201d Crispi said. \u201cOur culture is good enough for their photo ops, our food is good enough for their fundraisers, and our neighborhoods are good enough for tourism dollars \u2014 but when it comes time to recognize Italian Americans, they erase us.\u201d<\/p>\n The league called on Mamdani to update the map, issue a public apology to Italian Americans, and include Little Italy and other historic Italian-American neighborhoods in future city projects recognizing immigrant heritage.<\/p>\n \u201cWalk down Mulberry Street and you see everything Mamdani\u2019s map refused to see,\u201d Crispi said. \u201cYou see the flags, the saints, the food, the families, Baby John\u2019s cannolis, John Viola\u2019s Red Sauce Studio, and the old-school Italian-American grit that built this city. Little Italy is not dead. Little Italy is not optional. Little Italy is New York.\u201d<\/p>\n A City Hall spokesperson defended the map, saying it was never intended to catalog every ethnic or religious community in the city, in a statement<\/a> to the New York Post. Instead, it \u201chighlights neighborhoods in New York City that have substantial foreign-born populations from regions and countries around the world.\u201d<\/p>\n The spokesperson noted that Little Odessa, which is included on the map, has a substantial Jewish population, pushing back on criticism that Jewish communities had been excluded.<\/p>\n![\""New](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/HMs5Bn3XcAAUexW.jpeg\")
\u201cNew York City Immigrant Enclaves\u201d map. (Source: NYC Mayor\u2019s Office of Immigrant Affairs)<\/p>\n![\"People](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/AP25100418096015.jpg\")
People dine at an Italian restaurant in the Little Italy neighborhood, Wednesday, April 9, 2025, in New York. (Yuki Iwamura\/AP Photo)<\/p>\n