What happened to it
Little Italy was once a large, densely Italian-American neighborhood covering much of what's now considered Nolita and parts of SoHo. Successive waves of change — the expansion of Chinatown from the south, rising rents, and the gradual dispersal of Italian-American families to Brooklyn, Staten Island, and the suburbs from the mid-20th century onward — have reduced it to essentially one street: Mulberry Street between Canal and Broome.
What's actually there now
Mulberry Street retains a strip of Italian restaurants, cafés, and a few long-running specialty shops, largely operating for the tourist trade at this point rather than a residential Italian-American community that no longer lives there in meaningful numbers. The San Gennaro Feast, an eleven-day street festival each September, is the neighborhood's biggest remaining institution — genuinely lively, historic (running since 1926), and worth timing a visit around if you're interested.
The honest comparison
For food specifically, Arthur Avenue in the Bronx is the more authentic and better-value Italian food destination — a real market, real bakeries, and a clientele that includes actual Italian-American families rather than exclusively visitors. Little Italy is worth a short walk if you're already in the area (it borders Chinatown and Nolita directly), but isn't worth a dedicated trip on food merits alone.
Getting there
The 6, N, Q, R, W, J, and Z trains all reach the area via Canal Street or Spring Street stations. Little Italy borders Chinatown to the south and Nolita/SoHo to the north — easy to combine into one downtown walk.
Where the community actually went
The Italian-American community that once dominated this area dispersed primarily to Staten Island (which has one of the largest Italian-American populations of any US borough, concentrated in the north shore neighborhoods near the ferry) and to outer-borough neighborhoods in Queens and New Jersey. Arthur Avenue in the Bronx (see our Fordham guide) retained its Italian-American commercial character far better than Manhattan's Little Italy, largely because it was never in the path of the same tourist-infrastructure pressure. For Italian food and community atmosphere that reflects what Little Italy once was, Arthur Avenue is the more honest destination.
What's worth doing here
The Feast of San Gennaro, an annual street festival held along Mulberry Street for eleven days each September, is a genuine institution — running continuously since 1926 — with carnival rides, sausage-and-pepper vendors, cannoli competitions, and the combination of neighbourhood nostalgia and tourist spectacle that accurately reflects what Little Italy has become. It's worth attending as a New York experience without necessarily pretending it represents an intact ethnic neighbourhood in the way it once did.
The Nolita overlap
The blocks immediately north of Canal Street — Nolita (North of Little Italy, roughly Prince to Houston, Bowery to Lafayette) — have developed a distinct identity as an upscale boutique and restaurant area since the 1990s, with some of the best independent fashion retail in downtown Manhattan alongside strong Italian and Mediterranean restaurant options. The Nolita stretch of Mulberry Street north of Spring is notably better for eating than the tourist-facing stretch further south.