Neighborhood Update: Museum Madness

The month of October is a quiet one in Little Italy. The annual festivities of San Gennaro are but a distant memory, as the outdoor seating for the string of Italian restaurants on Mulberry Street retreat from the street back to the sidewalk.

While no major shops or restaurants are opening in the area, two new cultural museums seek to draw people interested in the history of two of Lower Manhattan's most distinct immigrant populations--the Italians and the Chinese.

The newest development in the neighborhood would probably be the opening of the newly relocated Italian American Museum. Housed at the site of the former bank Banca Stabile, which was once the bank of choice among Italian immigrants. Now, the converted site is home to a wealth of artifacts that chronicle the plight of Italians in America, a story that is really under 100 years old. From photographs to money, luggage tags to the bank itself, there are many ways for the few remaining Italians to learn about their heritage right on Mulberry Street.

On the west side of the neighborhood, construction continues on another museum, this one the relocation of the Museum of Chinese in America, or MoCA. This museum, scheduled to open this winter, is moving from its former, cramped upstairs four-room space on Mulberry Street. The museum may feel more at home, considering the high concentration of Chinese store fronts that bound its not address, 211 Centre Street.

Despite its tiny former exhibition space, the museum played host to nearly 100,000 visitors annually. Now, with its upcoming ground level, state of the art facility, there will certainly be renewed interest in not only the story of Chinese in America, but here near Little Italy as well.

It's poetic that these two museums will open so close to each other in such a short time span. The small, low key Italian Museum may have come first, but the larger, more visible MoCA is on it's way in, trying to dominate the local museum scene.