☞ REMEMBER: Farmacia Italiana circa 1932

A photo from 1932 shows street life at the corner of 119th Street and First Avenue when the neighborhood was still known as Harlem's Little Italy on the east side.  East Harlem had the largest Italian population in the city until the 1950's when Urban Renewal would displace that particular immigrant group and cause major demographic shifts. Towers in the park style of architecture replaced great sections of the old tenement neighborhood but this particular block shown in the photo still exists today albeit somewhat altered.

Charles Von Urban, 2323 First Avenue, ca 1932 via the digital collection at the Museum of the City of New York