{"id":35,"featured":0,"modified":"2026-08-17 01:06:39","latitude":41.50865839419771674556614016182720661163330078125,"longitude":-81.59792125225067138671875,"title":"Little Italy","subtitle":"An Abruzzi Outpost on Mayfield Hill","fullsize":"https://clevelandhistorical.org/files/fullsize/fcf92ead12921bef3ecbb65ba315d029.jpg","address":"Mayfield Rd and Murray Hill Rd, Cleveland, OH","all_locations":[],"zoom":16,"creator":["Michael Sharaba"],"description":"One of Cleveland's most enduring ethnic neighborhoods, Little Italy was established in the late nineteenth century by immigrants largely from the Italian villages of Ripalimosani, Matrice, and San Giovanni in Galdo in the province of Campobasso—then part of the region known as Abruzzi e Molise. Giuseppe Carabelli, an Italian artisan, came to Cleveland via New York to open a sculpting and stone masonry business. Carabelli's early employees developed reputations as expert stonemasons due to their contributions to monumental works at nearby Lake View Cemetery. In the 1890s and 1900s, numerous Italian families took up residence to the south of the cemetery.
Other Italians moved into the enclave from Big Italy, a much larger district that had developed beginning in the 1880s along Orange and Woodland avenues and around the old Central Market, where a heavily Sicilian population engaged in the produce trade. By the early twentieth century, Big Italy was among the most densely populated districts and suffered increasingly poor living conditions. Hundreds of dwellings were also razed in the 1920s to expand the New York Central Railroad and the Northern Ohio Food Terminal. Those who were able to leave sought new homes on the Near West Side and in Kinsman, Collinwood, and Little Italy.
Neighborhood life in Little Italy revolved around both Holy Rosary Church and Alta House. Holy Rosary parish was established by the Cleveland Catholic Diocese in 1891 when the Scalabrini Fathers were summoned from Italy to serve Cleveland's eastern Italian residents. During the ensuing years, the parish grew, built two churches, and served as the religious and social hub of the neighborhood.
The Alta House began as a nursery and kindergarten program for the neighborhood. Carabelli approached the agency about expanding social services to the community. By 1898, contributions from John D. Rockefeller provided programs and facilities in the name of his daughter, Alta, to serve the immigrant community as it adapted to life in a new city. Although some local commentators were already pointing to these institutions' declining neighborhood base as early as the 1930s, both Holy Rosary and Alta House remained important religious and social centers in a neighborhood that was not going to empty out.
In the 1950s and 1960s, freeway construction and urban renewal destroyed what was left of Big Italy. In contrast, Little Italy was comparatively stable, though it gradually lost Italian families to Cleveland’s eastern suburbs. The neighborhood also experienced a period of serious racial conflict during the 1960s and 1970s, when opposition to school integration and to the presence of African Americans in and around the neighborhood sometimes erupted into violence.
In those same years, however, Little Italy attracted increasing outside attention. The Feast of the Assumption, first observed in 1898, attracted ever larger crowds in the 1950s and 1960s, introducing more visitors to the neighborhood's bakeries and restaurants. A few such businesses, notably Presti's and Guarino's, dated to the early decades of the twentieth century. As many Italians moved to the suburbs, a number of Little Italy's small, neighborhood-oriented shops yielded to restaurants that attracted Greater Cleveland residents, students and employees in nearby University Circle, and tourists—a trend that accelerated in the 1980s. Thus, even as residents of Italian descent became a minority by the end of the century, Little Italy remained Cleveland’s most visible center of Italian heritage.","sponsor":null,"accessinfo":"","lede":"","website":"","related_resources":["Dolgan, Robert. \"Little Italy Race Stance Mellows.\" The Plain Dealer. February 17, 1975.","Grabowski, John J. \"Primo Vino.\" Encyclopedia of Cleveland History.","\"In Little Italy.\" Cleveland Plain Dealer. November 12, 1931.","\"Little Italy.\" Encyclopedia of Cleveland History.","Kelly, Grace V. \"Dungeon Restaurant Glamours Little Italy.\" Cleveland Plain Dealer. April 5, 1930.","Michney, Todd M. \"Race, Violence, and Urban Territoriality: Cleveland's Little Italy and the 1966 Hough Uprising.\" Journal of Urban History 32, no. 3 (March 2006): 404–428.","Sangiacomo, Michael. \"Outsiders Move into Old Ethnic Neighborhood.\" The Plain Dealer. January 30, 1994.","Topp, Walter. \"Little Italy Looms Large.\" The Plain Dealer. August 26, 1998."],"factoids":[],"files":{"https://clevelandhistorical.org/files/fullsize/fcf92ead12921bef3ecbb65ba315d029.jpg":{"id":13221,"mime-type":"image/jpeg","title":"Mayfield Road, 1968","description":"Although many different businesses have come and gone in the neighborhood, the built environment in Little Italy has changed very little over the years. | Cleveland Memory, Michael Schwartz Library Special Collections at Cleveland State University | June 6, 1968 | Tom Prusha","thumbnail":"https://clevelandhistorical.org/files/square_thumbnails/fcf92ead12921bef3ecbb65ba315d029.jpg"},"https://clevelandhistorical.org/files/fullsize/9694a59b3f6a35d9917506d9256f61ec.jpg":{"id":12760,"mime-type":"image/jpeg","title":"Alpo S. Tuuri, Wet Little Italy (1927)","description":"Alpo S. Tuura (1902-1928), a Finnish-American artist, attended Cleveland School of Art (now Cleveland Institute of Art), where he drew this composition inspired by Little Italy. | Cleveland Museum of Art (CC0) | 1927 | Alpo S. Tuuri","thumbnail":"https://clevelandhistorical.org/files/square_thumbnails/9694a59b3f6a35d9917506d9256f61ec.jpg"},"https://clevelandhistorical.org/files/fullsize/4a1f776747a260e042a04a37a9c877d1.jpg":{"id":13222,"mime-type":"image/jpeg","title":"Holy Rosary Church and Parsonage","description":"Holy Rosary Catholic Church was established in Little Italy in 1892, becoming Cleveland's second Roman Catholic parish for Italians. The church seen here was dedicated in 1909. | Cleveland Memory, Michael Schwartz Library Special Collections at Cleveland State University","thumbnail":"https://clevelandhistorical.org/files/square_thumbnails/4a1f776747a260e042a04a37a9c877d1.jpg"},"https://clevelandhistorical.org/files/fullsize/a7bafa3316c6003e68d350f21bd3f4ff.jpg":{"id":13220,"mime-type":"image/jpeg","title":"Mayfield Road, Facing West, 1930","description":"This photo shows decorations placed above the road for the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the most significant celebration of the year in Little Italy each year. | Cleveland Memory, Michael Schwartz Library Special Collections at Cleveland State University | August 15, 1930","thumbnail":"https://clevelandhistorical.org/files/square_thumbnails/a7bafa3316c6003e68d350f21bd3f4ff.jpg"},"https://clevelandhistorical.org/files/fullsize/li1_9b048ed5a8.jpg":{"id":992,"mime-type":"image/jpeg","title":"Feast of the Assumption, 1962","description":"In August of each year, Roman Catholics celebrate the Assumption of Mary. Feast of the Assumption celebrations in Cleveland's Little Italy neighborhood have taken on the character of a street fair, with food vendors and entertainment lining Mayfield Road. The holiday, which has been observed in Little Italy since 1898, draws thousands of visitors each year from throughout the Cleveland area.
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\r\n | Cleveland Memory, Michael Schwartz Library Special Collections at Cleveland State University | 1962","thumbnail":"https://clevelandhistorical.org/files/square_thumbnails/li1_9b048ed5a8.jpg"},"https://clevelandhistorical.org/files/fullsize/0ef35e0c18c6f16e3113b10e4dc0730e.jpg":{"id":13219,"mime-type":"image/jpeg","title":"Guarino's Restaurant Sign","description":"The local bars and restaurants that once served a majority-Italian population in Little Italy now serve a more diverse clientele that reflects changes in the neighborhood's demographic makeup. Cleveland's oldest restaurant, Guarino's, dates to 1918 and in the late 1930s was the first of the neighborhood's restaurants to open an outdoor dining courtyard, ushering in a trend toward outdoor dining. | Cleveland Memory, Michael Schwartz Library Special Collections at Cleveland State University | 1964 | Tom Tomsic","thumbnail":"https://clevelandhistorical.org/files/square_thumbnails/0ef35e0c18c6f16e3113b10e4dc0730e.jpg"},"https://clevelandhistorical.org/files/original/999068sr-little-itlay-little-italy-and-big-italy_mixdown_d58a3f8b84.mp3":{"id":350,"mime-type":"audio/mpeg","title":"Little and Big Italy","description":"Nancy Phillips explains the origins of Little Italy and its relationship to Cleveland's other Italian community | Cleveland Regional Oral History Collection"},"https://clevelandhistorical.org/files/original/999068sr-little-itlay-feast-of-the-assumption_mixdown_dd553902ff.mp3":{"id":351,"mime-type":"audio/mpeg","title":"The Feast of the Assumption","description":"Nancy Phillips talks about how the Feast of the Assumption has changed over the years | Cleveland Regional Oral History Collection"},"https://clevelandhistorical.org/files/original/85dc56f85d53ec38b20d4e3f8ab77542.mp3":{"id":6424,"mime-type":"audio/mpeg","title":"The Little Italy Neighborhood Develops","description":"Mr. Frank Fiorilli and Mr. Richard Gallitto describe local institutions that most influenced the residents of the Mayfield Road neighborhood. Holy Rosary Church, the Alta House, and Murray Hill School combined to unite the residents of the neighborhood during the first half of the twentieth century. | Cleveland Regional Oral History Collection | James Lanese"}}}