Hey guys,just wanted to get your opinion or if somebody acctually knows what are the neighbourhoods that emigrant Sicilians used to come to in large numbers..?I'm talking about early 20th century to mid.For example i know that Sicilians from Castelmmare del Golfo came to Williamsburgh,and also Bhurst had a lot italians from Sicily.What do you guys think?

About 80 percent of the ~5 million Italians who immigrated to America were from Sicily, Calabria and the Naples area. The hundreds of thousands who settled in NYC started out in Lower Manhattan's Little Italy, which has now been almost totally absorbed in Chinatown. Arthur Avenue in the Bronx, and East New York and Canarsie in Brooklyn, were major Italian American neighborhoods. Bensonhurst in Brooklyn is a remaining big Italian neighborhood in the city. How many in Bensonhurst are Sicilian, vs. others, I couldn't say. Today Italian Americans are all over the city, and mostly in the suburbs, just like other onetime immigrant groups.

In my perception, none of the neighborhoods were exclusively Sicilian vs. exclusively Napolitan' or Calabrese--they lived mostly (but not always) together. Often an entire apartment building, or a side of a street, might have been populated by one group or the other, but not the entire neighborhood.

I've heard that initially most Sicilians kept to themselves, as did Campanians and Calabrians. But I think nowadays a lot of Italian-Americans might have a combination of Italian ancestries.

I'm a born and bred Sicilian American from Bensonhurst. Although it has changed greatly in the last 20 years, Bensonhurst does maintain a strong Italian immigrant population. Mainly Sicilians, 18th Ave was known as Little Sicily. Growing up almost all of the Italians in the neighborhood were from towns surrounding Palermo or towns near Mola di Bari. Like I said it has changed a great deal but I'd say no other neighborhood in NYC comes close to being an authentic Italian neighborhood that still speaks Italian like the Bensonhurst/Dyker Heights/Gravesend area.

True Don Carlo,my mother is from 17th ave she says the same thing.Although her familly is not from Sicily,she says a very big part of the Italian americans that lived there were in fact from the area around Palermo.When i was there in 08,there were a lot of Italians but a lot of Russians and such aswell.Even today there are a lot of social clubs,where men from a specific town or region meet.
Also,read that a lot of sicilians from Trapani,palermo and agrigento living in Bushwick,Brooklyn.In 70 they were all gone,and Puertoricans got that place.Dyker Heights acctually has a highest percentage of Italians in Brooklyn in the precent time.

How about Howard Beach?? I read that still had a high italian population?

Yeah big Italian population,middle class to upper.

in the bronx. Morris Park avenue had a high concentration of first generation italians, mostly sicilian. it was considered an upper middle class area. across from williamsbridge road to white plains road, up from bronxdale av. beginning at tremont down to pelham parkway. many a mobster had or met at social clubs there.