Italian population dwindling in North End

by Ben Austin






NORTH END -- As Victor Brogna sat outside Caffe Pompei on Hanover Street writing Thursday night, he watched waves of noisy twenty-somethings flood the streets, restaurants and bars.


"I wish that bars didn't stay open so late, because some of them take the drinkers who have left Fanneul Hall market place," said Brogna, 74, a member of the North End/Waterfront Resident's Association. "I really wouldn't want to live on Hanover Street."


Brogna, who has lived in the North End for nearly two decades, said that the bustling streets and more than 90 liquor licenses of the North End are signs of the demographic changes in the neighborhood.


The Italian population of the North End now makes up about 40 percent of the 10,000 people in the neighborhood, according to the Boston Redevelopment Authority. This is a substantial drop from 70 percent four decades ago.


As the Italian population declines, the number of college students and young professionals in Boston's "Little Italy" is rising. In what was once family-based neighborhood, non-family households make up 75 percent of the residents, according to data provided by OnBoard LLC in 2007.


The surge of younger residents as result of expanding colleges in downtown Boston, and the completion of the Big Dig, which previously separated the neighborhood from the city.


"I remember coming down here when I was growing up and the North End was so cut off by the highway," said Jeff Black, 36, a commercial real estate agent who lives in the North End. "I think that kept a lot of the old people in and kept the new people out."


With the new population of young people moving into the neighborhood, the lifestyles of neighbors can clash.


"I was young and I know what it's like to have fun and party, but you've got to respect your surroundings. You're not in a college dormitory. You're not on campus," said Sal Bartolo, 62, who has lived in the North End his whole life. "It's all about respecting the people who live around you."


Not all young people moving into the North End are rowdy college kids. For some, traditional Italian-American culture lures them to the neighborhood.


"The North End is one of the areas that made me fall in love with Boston," said Yelana Loiselle, 20, an Emerson College sophomore who will be moving to the North End next fall. "My Grandfather was Italian and it's just in my blood to love everything Italian, especially the food!"


State Rep. Aaron Michlewitz, who grew up in the North End, has watched the neighborhood change around him, but says it remains a community-based neighborhood.


"A lot has changed, some for the better and some for the worse," said Michlewitz, who grew up in the North End. "Even though it has changed from being an italian neighborhood, it's still a very community oriented neighborhood. That's the great thing about the North End."