116th Street and Second Avenue. I ate there with my Dad just about every Friday afternoon for almost thirty years (EHI already knows this).

I grew up in the Bronx, 187th and Hoffman, but my Dad grew up in East Harlem, Pleasant Avenue, between 117th and 118th. My grandparents lived in that building from the day they arrived in this country until the day each of them died, almost 70 years! So I know the area well, and I feel like I grew up there myself. When my grandmother died in 1991, she was already one of the last Italian born women in the neighborhood.

Re Rao's: Overrated. I've posted this before, but I've eaten there twice and it was no great shakes. Family style NYC Italian. Nothing you can't get at Dominick's in the Bronx or Bamonte's in Brooklyn for half the price (not to mention that you can just walk right into those places).

Re Changing neighborhoods: No one who grew up in a cold water tenement walk up (like I did) would want the same for their children. Anyone who posts otherwise is just being a sentimentalist who obviously grew up in the suburbs. Italian American assimilation is a good thing.