Lens Zen! That's Amore ya Goombas!

A stroll through Boston's "Little Italy," the North End!

Sep 08, 2024

Lens Zen is an additional feature of Stay Curious. Photography is another one of my creative crafts; I find it meditative, fun, and another outlet for expression. I especially love the idea of photography as an antidote to distraction and despair. Every other week I’ll share some captures/short writing to, I hope, add a bit of lift to your day.

The North End is the oldest part of Boston. Isn’t every part of Boston, like, super old? I know, I know! It’s like STOP TRYING TO BE CRETE, BOSTON! We get it. But the North End is the earliest colonized area of the city, dating back to the 1630s. Friends, this neighborhood has seen some serious Ken Burns mini-series-level action!

Paul Revere lived in this area. His home still exists, open daily for tours, of course. And it’s a good thing he decided to buy here because just a few blocks away stands the Old North Church—the oldest surviving church in the commonwealth of Boston (see above note regarding historic brags etc). It was on the night of April 18, 1775 that Robert Newman and John Pulling entered the Old North Church to post the colonial equivalent of a Bat signal: two lanterns in the bell tower to indicate that British troops were crossing the Charles River and heading toward the towns of Lexington and Concord. It was commonly understood at that point that the British were preparing to move on munitions held in those towns and, more importantly, to apprehend Samuel Adams and John Hancock, two well-known colonial agitators the Crown was desperate to subdue. All Paul had to do was look out his kitchen window, see the lanterns, and hop on his steed, Pickleball (most history books fail to credit plucky Pickleball), and ride like a maniac through the surrounding towns warning his pals Sammy and Johnny that they were, like, in wicked big trouble, like, seriously dudes, I cannot stress enough how impahhtant it is for you guys to get the frick out of Dodge, like yestahhday. History!

For most of the 1700s the North End was populated by many of the wealthier Boston families. Gradually they gravitated toward newer and shinier parts of the city like Beacon Hill and the recently expanded Back Bay area, taking their money with them. By the early decades of the nineteenth century the North End was primed for a major reinvention.

Anyone who has done a make-over or a renovation of any kind can tell you that it ain’t pretty. So it was for the North End. There was massive overcrowding (indoor plumbing didn’t start to catch on in America until about 1840. You do the disgusting math). A “red-light” district called Black Sea sprung up in the heart of the neighborhood and no one that frequented it was “just looking to talk.” And in 1849 a major cholera epidemic swept the entire city of Boston, but hit the North End the hardest—of the 700 victims claimed in the pandemic, more than half came from the North End. In the midst of all of this cultural roil came huge influxes of immigrant populations from Ireland, Eastern Europe, and Italy. One community’s population panic is another generation’s sweet, delicious gift. It is due in large part to the diverse nationalities who arrived in the 1800s and made the North End their home that we have the beautiful, thriving, culturally rich iteration of the North End, also known as Boston’s Little Italy, that exists today.

It is always a treat wandering around this incredible neighborhood. Restaurants, cafes, and specialty bakery and food stores line the North End’s main arteries. Narrow side streets are home to buildings with architecture that is as scrumptious as the food being served a block away. And every summer the North End celebrates its Italian heritage with a series of epic feasts held over the course of different days beginning in June and lasting until early September.

My most recent walk through the North End happened to coincide with the Feast of St. Anthony. It was begun in 1919 by a group of Italian immigrants who had settled in the North End from the town of Montefalcione in Avellino. Streets are closed to traffic. Food vendors, carnival game and merchandising booths sit shoulder to shoulder along the lanes, and brilliant decorations dangle between buildings. Live music and a celebratory procession round out the festivities. The Feast of St. Anthony is the largest Italian religious festival in New England (brag) and was even designated “The Feasts of all Feasts” by National Geographic Magazine (wicked brag).

The North End is a lot like the cannoli made fresh each day in any one of its many bakeries: small in size, big in pleasure, and always a delight.

XO!