New York City New York When one thinks of New York City, the Island of Manhattan comes to mind. But actually New York City is composed of five boroughs; the Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, the Queens, and Staten Island. However immigration is most closely associated with Manhattan.
The first immigration station in New York was Castle Garden (August 1, 1855 – April 18, 1890), located in lower Manhattan. Then the Barge Office (April 19, 1890 – December 31, 1891), also in lower Manhattan was used while a permanent facility was being built on Ellis Island in New York Bay off the tip of Manhattan. Ellis Island was used from January 1, 1892 – January 13, 1897 when it burned to the ground. The Barge Office was reopened and used from January 14, 1897 – December 16, 1900, when a rebuilt Ellis Island facility was reopened. It was finally closed as an immigration station on November 12, 1954. It is now open and partially restored so visitors may learn about immigration practices and procedures. These New York facilities were the primary point of entry for immigrants into the United States.
About 5 million Italians immigrated to the United States through New York. Many remained, at least at first, in Manhattan, in an area that was known as Little Italy, centered around Mulberry Street. They crowded into tenements and worked at jobs that few others wanted. The fortunate found work with the New York Department of Public Works, where in 1890 90% of the work force was Italian. They did the “dirty work” which were mainly unskilled jobs such as laying sewers, tunneling, subway construction, street grading, general construction, and street sweeping. The less fortunate worked in the “sweat shops” of the garment industry, shined shoes, carried offal from ships, cleaned sewers, or collected trash. Gradually they moved into the other boroughs of New York looking for better employment and housing.
New York City Mulberry Street, Little Italy (abt 1900)
Some including Cofrancescos moved across the Hudson River into New Jersey and further south into Pennsylvania and Delaware. Other Cofrancescos moved to the northern part of New York State and into the neighboring state of Connecticut to the Northeast. While immigration records show some 150 Cofrancescos entered this country through New York, the majority did not intend to remain in the City and listed their destination elsewhere.
The Godfather trilogy about the fictional Corleone family is thought by some to glorify the Mafia, however it presents a unique opportunity to view Italian immigration at Ellis Island and life in Manhattans Little Italy in the early 20th century. To make the films, streets in the Lower East Side of Manhattan were transformed into the way they looked nearly 100 years ago. The three films and a special bonus DVD telling of the making of the Godfather trilogy are well worth viewing. Of particular value is Behind the Scenes, On Location, in the Bonus material and three scenes in The Godfather Part II, Disc 1, Scene 3, Ellis Island 1901 depicting Vito Corleone as a boy arriving at Ellis Island, Scene 8, New York City, 1917, and Scene 9, Vito Meets Clemenza, both showing Vito as a young man, played by Robert De Niro, in the transformed Lower East Side neighborhood.
