remaining Italian enclaves (home, neighborhood, school)

[King of Kensington]

Not talking about Italian ancestry only - but places where Italian is still commonly spoken. Unfortunately the latest data for language spoken at home I can find at the level of municipality/CDP was from 2000 (though 2010 is available at the county level). But the majority of speakers in 2000 were not 65+ (I thought they would have been), meaning they were born after 1935 and while the number has certainly shrunk since then do to older Italian speakers dying off and a new generation not speaking Italian, the numbers should still be significant in these places today. It's probably fair to say that many of those born before 1935 may be second generation Americans who still speak Italian, but the majority after 1935 would almost certainly be post-war immigrants.

Here's a list of places with populations over 5,000 where at least 5% of the population spoke Italian at home in 2000. Most are, not surprisingly, in the New York metro area which may have received about half of the post-war immigrants.

West Paterson (Passaic) 11.8%
Tuckahoe (Westchester) 10.7%
Franklin Square (Nassau) 10.1%
Harrison (Westchester) 9.5%
Totowa (Passaic) 9.4%
Kenilworth (Union) 8.8%
Raritan (Somerset) 8.8%
Westbury (Nassau) 8.6%
Glen Cove (Nassau) 8.5%
Eastchester (Westchester) 7.9%
Inwood (Nassau) 7.8%
Thornwood (Westchester) 7.2%
East Rutherford (Bergen) 6.9%
Little Ferry (Passaic) 6.9%
Carlstadt (Bergen) 6.8%
Hawthorne (Westchester) 6.7%
Cliffside Park (Bergen) 6.5%
Englewood Cliffs (Bergen) 6.5%
New Hyde Park (Nassau) 6.5%
Mamaroneck (Westchester) 6.4%
Hawthorne (Passaic) 6.2%
West Long Branch (Monmouth) 5.9%
Elmwood Park (Bergen) 5.5%
Hasbrouck Heights (Bergen) 5.4%
North New Hyde Park (Nassau) 5.4%
Garfield (Bergen) 5.3%
Lyndhurst (Bergen) 5.3%
Mahopac (Putnam) 5.3%
Belleville (Essex) 5.2%
North Haledon (Passaic) 5.2%
Mount Kisco (Westchester) 5.1%

Chicago also has a fair number of places with significant Italian speaking populations:

Norridge 12.3%
Schiller Park 7.6%
Harwood Heights 7.4%
Elmwood Park 6.3%
Addison 5.2%

And around Boston:

Revere 6.9%
Medford 5.9%
Everett 5.4%

I couldn't find any places that were more than 5% Italian speaking around Philadelphia. My guess is compared to New York, Chicago and Boston it was bypassed by postwar immigrants.

Other places include

Gates-North Gates, NY (Rochester) 8%
Wethersfield, CT (Hartford) 6.8%

Language Map Data Center

There may be other places as well.

[Mountainbluebear]

Try looking at Maspeth, Queens in NY - huge Italian community with many who speak Italian.

[King of Kensington]

For big cities, I'll do ZIP codes. They have quite large populations, but census tracts take too long to do. Here's NYC:

11228 (Brooklyn) 15.3%
11214 (Brooklyn) 11%
11414 (Howard Beach) 10.8%
11204 (Brooklyn) 10.6%
10461 (Bronx) 10.3%
11379 (Middle Village) 9.3%
11223 (Brooklyn) 8.3%
10465 (Bronx) 7.9%
11105 (Astoria) 7%
10305 (Staten Island) 6.7%
10309 (Staten Island) 6.6%
10307 (Staten Island) 6.2%
10312 (Staten Island) 5.9%
11378 (Maspeth) 5.5%
11231 (Brooklyn) 5.2%
10308 (Staten Island) 5%

[ckhthankgod]

According to that website, Lyncourt NY was at 5.3% in terms of Italian spoken, but it has around 4200-4300 people. There are some communities/zip codes with over 5000 people, but are just under 5% in terms of Italian spoken.

I'm sure there are some others that fit the criteria perhaps in Connecticut or Rhode Island too.

[King of Kensington]

Interesting. Nothing in Buffalo meets the criteria. Syracuse comes much closer.

[ckhthankgod]

Originally Posted by King of Kensington

Interesting. Nothing in Buffalo meets the criteria. Syracuse comes much closer.

Yes, so does Rochester, which is the area Gates-North Gates is in. East Rochester is another community that comes very close too. Maybe parts of Chili and Greece as well.

Syracuse's 13203, 13208(Lyncourt is in this zip) and 13206 zip codes come close. Solvay/13209 come pretty close too.

EUtica-Rome is an even bigger surprise, but according to that site, the 13501 zip code comes pretty close. East Utica and adjacent Frankfort are known for their high Italian populations.

In the Buffalo area, I'd look into Niagara Falls around Pine Ave, North Buffalo, Kenmore, Tonawanda(town & CDP) and perhaps West Seneca.

[King of Kensington]

Boston, Philadelphia and Chicago proper:

Boston includes the North End (though it only had 6,300 people) and East Boston:

02113, 10.5%
02128, 5.9%

Another zip code, 02109, comes in at 8.2%, though it only had a population of about 3,400.

2 zip codes in South Philadelphia make the cut:

19148, 5.5%
19145, 5.3%

And in Chicago, there's one Northwest Side zip code. Chicago's old-school Italians are clustered more in the inner-ring suburbs:

60656, 5.4%

[Craziaskowboi]

South Philadelphia is more "Little Saigon" than "Little Italy" these days, no?

[NOLA101]

The one place in the U.S. where I have heard Italian as a regular "norm", like walking down the street, and going to the store, is Dyker Heights, Brooklyn, which is a little-known neighborhood wedged between Bensonhurst and Bay Ridge Brooklyn. That area is VERY Italian, and you are almost guaranteed to hear Italian and see Si Parla Italiano signs in shop windows.

But the neighborhood isn't really a tourist destination, so is more of an "insiders" type place. Plenty of Italian restaurants and the like, but more for locals.

[NOLA101]

And what do you know- the zip code listed highest, at 15.3%, is Dyker Heights, Brooklyn.

If you visit, check out 13th Avenue from around 70th to 86th Street, which is lined with Italian restaurants, bakeries, and specialty shops. And unlike the famous Little Italys of NYC (including adjacent Bensonhurst), it will be all locals.

#2 and #4, and #7 on the list are adjacent Bensonhurst/Gravesend areas. So, not surprisingly, Southern Brooklyn appears to contain, by far, the largest concentration of Italian speakers in the U.S.