Miss the old school ways. Tenements full of Italians. The old shops like butcher shops,tailor shops,barbers,produce,cobblers,and variety stores. That is all you se now are fucking restaurants. Remember when all families were close and very loud. Wonderful dinners full of family eating and telling stories.
The smells of food and kindness of neighbors. Now we have yuppies buying up everything and forcing families out. Grandmothers and grandfathers are gone. The newer generation have no idea what they are missing. I miss the simple days of sitting in front of the stoop and playing Scopa. Fucking sucks to see the way things are today.

Today is the Coffee Shop/Restaurant and Parking Space era.If you even think of stayin in front of the restaurant or on the parking space and play Scopa or whatever,you gonna get arrested buddy.By the way whats this have to do with italian O.C. or whatever?

Actually it's a good sign .Italians aren't disappearing ,just their old digs.You wouldn't want to be stuck in the old neighborhood forever. Look around at the crumbling infrastructures of today's cities. It's up to the survivors of those old-school relatives to carry on their values and that's what is more valuable. You made the best of it , you moved up, moved out and left behind a physical skeleton . Now the new downtrodden immigrants fill in the spaces . My old neighborhood ( East Boston )is a swill bucket . My family (grandparents-Parents-Aunts-Uncles-Cousins)lived there for 70 years, now none are still there. Cheer up.

I grew up in a suburban Italian area outside of Boston; actually Italian and Irish, virtually everyone was catholic. We would see all of our friends and neighbors at church on Saturday night or Sunday morning.

Most front yards had statues of Madonna's and everyone other house grew summer vegetables, some of the old timers even made wine.

People supported the church and I can remember my mother picking tomatoes and cucumbers and sending me up the the rectory to drop them off to the nuns.

A few guys in the area were connected, they were the ones with the nice cars and bought there kids the newest and best of everything. But they were also generous withe the church and the elderly in the area. I can remember one guy, he paid me to shovel a few of the elderly people driveways and sidewalks. At first my mother objected but my dad overruled her.

Life was simple, ah I miss those days.

Wow you guys had front yards? Lucky bastards. Ya I remember those Madonnas in the half buried bathtubs. Speaking of homemade wine . We had an old guy that lived on Border st that had a magnificent grape vine in his backyard that he used to make his vino from . We snuck in there one night and helped ourselves to some of his grapes when all of a sudden **baboom** . We screwed out of there like shit through a goose and ran down to the docks so we could pick the rocksalt out of the backs of our arms and legs. Good times though..

Yeah, front yards, we were living large, lmao...

we had a grape vine.....there was a Lebanese women in our neighbor hood that use to come pick the leaves and wrap them with lamb and rice. She would always bring my family tons of them for letting her pick the leaves, Good stuff !!

Are there many Italian suburbs outside Boston? Medord? Malden? Those are the two that are generally spoken about! Are there more? The one thing i do notice up theremis 99% of all the construction trucks in the Boston are have Italian Surnames on them, that is something to be PROUD of! Spine tingling moment when you think of all those hard working guys getting of the boat and making it! Those arenthenguysnthesenreality TV shows should be about! Not these Pigs who are an abomination!

amen to that! i would love to see a reality show about an italian owned restaurant! not this mob wives shit my wife and sisters watch.

The Italian neighborhood where I go to school in St. Louis hasn't been gentrified a bit. It was a descent place to start with, however so maybe that's part of it. It doesn't bother me really. The restaurants and stores are the same it's just the people live on cul'de'sacs and not tenement corners.

Do they still have Jewish neighborhoods in NYC?

What Italian neighborhood do you live in frank?

New York City is a Jewish Neighborhood

NYC is only about 20% Jewish, far below the number of Catholics (about 60%).

It has become more spread out but 30 years ago when I was growing up almost all of West Roxbury was Italian and Irish and populations could be found in Dedham, Rosindale and Jamaica Plain.

There were plenty of other communities up and down the North and South shore.

Was Brockton? Marchiano being the greatest boxer of all time was from there no? Was that an Italian town?

No chance Marciano was the greatest boxer of all time that'd be sugar ray robinson. Marciano only really fought a spent Joe Louis and Jersey Joe and Ezzard Charles who his style was perfect for. The only reason he was undefeated was because he fought in the worst time period for the Heavyweight division ever and he stole the La Starza fight.

I wouldn't say all Italian neighborhoods are disappearing albeit most are,for example I was born in the Bronx, Throggs Neck to be precise,which is probablely,sadly,the most far gone of the five Boroughs and although my family for the most part left the BX you still have Italian enclaves all along the east bronx, It's not all about the "American Dream" but as a 21 year old "Kid" as my friend and fellow Bronx guy PB puts it, I'd pick my two floor house in Lower Westchester over a dirty tenement on 117th and Pleasent circa 1950,it's all about moving up the monetary ladder from immigrant to naturalized,just my perspective

Marciano was better than sugar ray for one reason.. He was a paisan! What else do you need to know?

He was a perfect style? Yeah a kick ass style! This argument coukd go on for days, however I will refer to Burt Sugar and Angelo Dundee on this and stick with Rocky!

"And it's not just the money. It's a pride thing. All our food: pizza, calzone, buffalo moozarell', olive oil. These f----s had nothin'. They ate pootsie before we gave them the gift of our cuisine. But this, this is the worst. This expresso shit."

Whats wrong with 117 and/ or Pleasant? LOL

Speaking of that part of town, I haven't been to Patsy's in years! Any one here ever been to Rao's?

Patsy's and Rao's couldnt be more over rated. Andy's Colonial Tavern was the best! Closed of coarse.

Where is/was Andy's?

I said he was the perfect style for Ezzard Charles who was the only decent,prime opposition he fought. Here is Bert Sugar 13 greatest boxers Sugar Ray is number 1 and Rocky doesn't appear - http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/multime.../content.1.html

I've also never heard Dundee say Rocky was the best but i have heard him say Ali,Holmes and Robinson is at various times.

Read Burt Sugars Boxing Encylopedia! Sugar ranks by weight, however he's at the top. Dundee has stated it several times, he had a soft spot for Ali, however he also stated pound for pound Marchiano was the best FIGHTER. This is a personal opinion argument. For my money I take Marchiano and his punch. Let me ask a question, you say the division wasnt that competitive! Was the Rocky's fault?

Plenty in Brockton, but it was always a mixed area. Most recently it's been taken over by blacks, Mexican and Cape Verdean folks.

Marciano is the only heavy weight champ to retire without a defeat. There's a statue of him in Brockton. Brockton has and always will be a very tough town, way past blue color, just plain tough. It's the type place now that crack is openly sold along the street next to working girls patrolling the streets.

I'm sure it had some presence through the years as it is halfway between Boston and Providence. Most of the area was controlled by the "Saint", Tauton, Stoughton all that southeastern area..

Not at all but Rocky should've lost to La Starza by personal opinion i'd say Ali because i thought he was more entertaining but there's no denying Robinson was the best. I provided you a link to Berts greatest fighters Rocky doesn't appear out of 13 and Joe Louis is the best heavyweight according to him.

To me it's Ali, hands down. Moved like a butterfly and stung like a bee.

My favorite fighter though was Marvin Hagler...