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If you haven't been to our community make 2012 the year you visit. Our many shops and restaurants will treat you well. Scroll down to read...

Tour Our Neighborhood
The tour is an education in the Italian assimilation in Cleveland's Little Italy. Walking Tour Booklet $10.50. Guided Tour groups of 8+ $9.00 ea. Group discount for 12 or more visitors

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ANNUAL EVENTS

  THE FEAST

August 15th, The Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin: On the actual feast day mass is offered at 10 am followed by a solemn funeral procession through the streets, it has been a religious tribute for over 110 years, This is a 4 day celebration always ending with fireworks. There are rides for kids in the churchyard, entertainment throughout the day, and lots to eat at various stands clustered about the neighborhood. Most of the shops are open extended hours, so this is a fine time to visit Little Italy Cleveland. The scheduled events are repeated for the 4 day celebration. For a really great experience, call ahead for reservations at any of our many restaurants.

Please direct all Feast questions to the church. The Feast is a church event. Proceeds benefit the church 216.421.2995

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  ART WALK

The first weekend in June, October, and December is known as the Murray Hill Art Walk: Little Italy Cleveland is loaded with art galleries and specialty shops. Three times a year the MHAA sponsor’s a walk that celebrates the works of local and nationally known accomplished artists and craftsmen.

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  TASTE of LITTLE ITALY

Not only do we boast our own restaurants in Little Italy we also invite the very best of Cleveland's Italian Restaurants to join in this fund raiser to benefit the Montessori School at Holy Rosary. It's an early evening affair with the price of admission covering all food and drink. It's a fun food wine tasting event. You can purchase tickets from the Montessori School whose contact info is found in Services. (Day to be announced)

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COLUMBUS DAY PARADE

October's event is the Columbus Day Parade. Columbus was Italian and we commemorate his discovery with a noontime parade through the streets of Little Italy Cleveland. It's most appropriate to hold the parade here since our founding father, Joseph Carabelli, as state representative pushed to proclaim it a national holiday.

Come early to get the best spot -perhaps next to the homemade gelato stand. Lunch may be purchased curbside, the parade is free.

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The community of Little Italy Cleveland does not sanction any 4th of July celebration. The illegal fireworks that have occurred over the years are definitely not sponsored by the community of Little Italy. Please do not attend any illegal display.

Our Boundary

Boundaries for Little Italy were created before its name was dubbed. The North boundary fenced in 285 acres of land that became Lakeview Cemetery in 1869 . It had only one gate on Euclid Ave.

During the 1870s Newell Cozad parceled his adjacent land to recoup funds lost by a failed park venture. By 1881 the railroad had laid tracks that became the west boundary. Italian craftsmen and railroad workers began buying homes and sub lots  bordered by the railroad tracks and the cemetery.

Another boundary to our community developed in 1881. A $500,000 donation to WRU to establish Adelbert College was in memory of multi millionaire Amasa Stone's son. Stone was an American industrialist who built railroads and invested in mills in Ohio.

The hill to the East, which eventually led to development in the heights, was a natural boundary. The boundaries created a chicken leg shape for our community; it both isolated and protected us from the rest of Cleveland.

La Befana

As legend has it the three Wise Men were in search of the Christ child when they decided to stop at a small house to ask for directions. Upon knocking, an old woman holding a broom opened the door slightly to see who was there. Standing at her doorstep were three colorfully dressed men who were in need of directions to find the Christ child. The old woman was unaware of who these three men were looking for and could not point them in the right direction. Prior to the three men leaving they kindly asked the old woman to join them on their journey. She declined because she had much housework to do.

After they left she felt as though she had made a mistake and decided to go and catch up with the kind men. After many hours of searching she could not find them. Thinking of the opportunity she had missed the old woman now goes through the world at Christmastime, looking for the Christ Child in the faces of children Each year on the eve of the Epiphany January 6th, she sets out looking for the baby Jesus. She stops at each child's house to leave those who were good treats in their stockings and those who were bad a lump of coal.

La Befana in her tattered clothes, broken shoes, and broom is the delight of children during the joyful Christmas season.

Torrone a sweet story

The roots of the Torrone history are based in ancient Rome. This delicacy made of honey, almonds and albumen was reserved for formal functions or as offerings to the gods. Various other cultures have versions of Torrone, such as the Arabs, who are said to have introduced it to the Spanish. Italy has its own well-documented version of Torrone, born on October 25, 1441.

At the wedding of Bianca Maria Visconti and Francesco Sforza, the bride not only had many jewels, money and riches of every kind as part of her dowry, but her father also offered the city of Cremona itself. To commemorate this, the court's pastry chefs decided to make a new confection in the shape of the city's tower named the Torione, in order to represent the city. Master chef of Cremona created a compact dessert of almonds, honey and egg whites. The dessert was a sculpture of the Bell Tower of the Duomo of Cremona, said Torrazzo and in those years called Torrione, in English ?Really Big Tower.?

Needless-to-say, the sweet was a great success with the guests who came from Europe, and soon requests for the city's special delicacy were received from all over the world.

Christmas Eve Fish Dinner

It is tradition that the Sicilians and Italians have a 7 fish dinner on Christmas Eve. Some think that it is perhaps one representing each day of the week, but most traditions come from the observance of the Cena della Vigilia, the wait for the miraculous birth of Christ in which early Christians Catholics fasted on Christmas Eve until after receiving communion at Midnight Mass.

Baccala, A staple at any Christmas Eve dinner, it's a dried cod, and takes several days to prepare.
Calamari squid, boiled
Shrimp shellfish, boiled
Clams shellfish, steamed till they open
Crab shellfish, boiled
Whitefish flounder or other type, bake in oven
Mussels/Oysters shellfish, steam until they open

Dessert usually consists of Panatone, a bread baked with fruit, and served with the traditional espresso, and of course, plenty of anisette or sambuca!

Joseph Carabelli learned the art of marble and granite cutting in Porto Ceresio in the province of Como Italy, and was apprentice to the sculpture trade at 12. Carabelli learned English as a teen in preparation for his adventure to America, the land of opportunity. In his late teens he was recognized in all of Italy as one of the finest journeyman sculptors. In 1870, the year his father died, he left for America. At 20, he traveled to New York and found small jobs for a year before being hired to work in the public building department of the federal government.

Carabelli appointed the NY City Federal buildings with statues and carved eagles. In 1876 he moved to Boston and met his wife, a woman from his village.

Carabelli won acclaim after crafting the Lions on the Boston Commons. With pockets filled from work he did on the east coast, he decided to open his own enterprise. While visiting Cleveland in 1879 he met James Broggini, another prominent Italian sculpture. The two became friendly business partners for six years in 1880.

Once on his own, Carabelli requiring skilled craftsmen to continue his business, he went to Italy to employ labor. Possessing sound Protestant ethics he felt responsible to the craftsmen he engaged. Carabelli continued to assist them in negotiating their way into a new country. Elected to state legislature in 1909. In 1910 he was instrumental in attaining a dedicated national holiday to celebrate Christopher Columbus.

How Coltman Road got its name

The artist Ora Coltman was born in Shelby, Ohio in 1858. He studied at the Art Students League in New York City and the Academie Julian in Paris. Coltman was a painter, sculptor, block printer, muralist, teacher, and writer. He kept a studio in Cleveland where he was a member of the Cleveland Society of Artists and Cleveland Printmakers.

Exhibitions of his work took place at the Art Institute of Chicago, the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art, the Cleveland Museum of Art, and the Butler Institute of American Art in Youngstown, Ohio. He also created a mural for the Cleveland Public Library called Dominance of the City. Coltman produced Dominance of the City between 1933 and 1934. It was the first New Deal mural commis sioned in Cleveland.

The New Deal was a federal program under the direction of the Treasury Department. The first program put into effect under the New Deal was the Public Works of Art Project (PWAP), and it ran from December 1933 to June 1934. The purpose of PWAP was to employ struggling artists to create art scenes of American life for public and government buildings.

Coltman's contribution was Dominance of the City, a mural triptych. It is a beautiful and thoughtful piece of art, which came from a talented and unique artist in a resilient city full of treasures and possibilities. Dominance of the City can be found at the Cleveland Public Library Main Branch on the 3rd Floor in the CD Room.

Home in Cleveland

During the early 1900 our community bustled with new residents from Italy. Some were skilled workers with funds to purchase a home on arrival. Others knew only farming or manual labor and found employment challenging. Their solace was the community as many were unable to find work due to prejudice.

Without wallowing, the resourceful Italian recogonized a communities need for services and a man's obligation to support his family. The resolve was to convert wasted space like a porch into a small shop.

Shops appeared on every street, each with an offering essential to daily life. Over sixty-seven (67) businesses from groceries to florist, banks to funeral homes, and hardware stores to gas stations were here to serve the community. There was even a beverage manufacturing company. It was all self-contained in Little Italy Cleveland.

Today many of those shops have converted back to living space but there is still an interesting assortment of shops and services in our community.

H.E.A.R.T. of Little Italy
This site's sponsor considers the whole community. It was established to provide a directory of Little Italy businesses so that visitors can find services and shops easily. Lots of sites point to Little Italy but this site is a free in-house operation and postings are uploaded as received. Educational and community events are also posted without cost. We know your patronage keeps our door open and we thank you for visiting often.

Membership: We do not have a fee to join our non-profit association but we do welcome donations. Many of us feel passionate about Little Italy and its historical significance. We want to preserve our heritage for more reasons than fond memories...we want to continue to live here in safety.

The right ear: This site is representative of our community but has no power or influence beyond its sounding-board nature. Many of the emails are miss-directed and the passion expressed needs to be properly directed. If you would like to bring your concerns to someone who could make a difference then you should make your point to our councilman, Kevin Conwell, at 216.791.8683

H.E.A.R.T. of LITTLE ITALY
Homeowners - Educators - Arts
Restaurants - Trade
a non profit organization 501(c)(3)

Dedicated to Preservation, Restoration,
and Historical Significance
PO Box 18753 Cleveland OH 44118

216.543.1157