I've been to NYC but never to little Italy so it was interesting for me to hear all about how it has changed so much. Buffalo is the same. Once the west side was nearly all Italian and now loaded with Puerto Ricans, Indians, Blacks and I think Arabs. Gone are the Italian stores (Mostly) bakeries and Pizzerias.
Well, it's funny because the outer borough Italian neighborhoods were replaced by the other poor, yet newer ethnic groups (Albanians and Latinos in the Bronx, Russians and Middle Easterners in Brooklyn and Queens, etc.). And the same holds true for East Harlem (in Manhattan), which is nearly 90 percent Latino today. Yet the downtown Little Italy (Mulberry Street, also in Manhattan) has only gotten richer due to gentrification.
Now don't get me wrong, there are still loads of poor Chinese in Chinatown, and Chinatown
has taken over a lot of Little Italy. But the northern part of Little Italy, from Grand Street, all the way up to around Bleecker Street, has only gotten wealthier. The rents down there are insane. Like I posted earlier in the thread, a one bedroom walk-up will run you at least $2500 a month. And there aren't even many hipsters in SoHo yet. Just a lot of Yuppies and foreign born business people.
