REMEMBER: THE ITALIAN BANK ON EAST 116TH

We noticed this past weekend that the 7-Eleven in El Barrio at the corner of 2nd Avenue on East 116th Street was situated in a rather grand building.  The architecture reminded us of an old bank building so we looked for any historic signage that would indicate as much and discovered the answer to the mystery while crossing the street.  Banca Commerciale Italiana can be seen clearly engraved up at top and is another reminder that the neighborhood was originally uptown's Little Italy before it turned into Spanish Harlem after the 1960s.

This was never apparent to us for some reason but looking at past images of the address reveals that the sign was covered up since another bank was using the building up until 2013.  Renovations for the new tenant came about by 2015 and the original sign was thus revealed once more since the historic nature was not a conflict of interest any more.