The Place of Identity:San Diego’s Little Italy and Community as Archive

This piece was written before the transformation of Little Italy. Since then, many of the landmarks and traditional celebrations have disappeared. The area has become more popular than ever, attracting large numbers of tourists, and is now one of San Diego main attractions.

Figure 1 Street Fair 2001

San Diego’s Little Italy is most likely not the first place that comes to mind when we speak of Italian American culture and communities. The East Coast of the US, New York, Boston, Philadelphia and other major metropolitan areas in North America, such as Toronto or Montreal, are more likely to come up in conversation. Those were the first places of approach and settling for Italian immigrants to the North American continent. It is there that we find the Little Italies that have gained fame in both the American and European imaginary. And yet, scattered around the country, there are a number of lesser-known, active and important Italian American communities. These, such as the now abandoned settlements on the Northern Channel Islands, off the California coast, have had an effect on the regions in which they formed and in the expansion of an Italian American “consciousness” of place and space within the national (US) and extra-national (Italy) spheres. San Diego is such a location.

In the mid 90s, I was hired on as a consultant by an engineering firm that competing for a contract, through the San Diego Center City Development Agency, for the reconstruction and reconditioning of the Middletown district of San Diego known as Little Italy. Along with two public artists and a landscape architect, we discussed, proposed, designed, presented and imagined how the new Little Italy might come into existence. It was my job to imagine all this through an historical and cultural lens, and in turn aid the artists, landscapers, designers and engineers work through these elements toward an effective social and commercial environment. For this reason, what follows is more a collection of observations, thoughts and notes on the condition of Little Italy at the time of the work.

At the end of our contracted time, I left San Diego for a two-year period in Italy. Upon my return I found a neighborhood in transition and movement, brimming with new energy and ready for more to happen. As is most often the case in such situations, what emerges in the final product is an amalgamation of all the forces at work in that environment. Having said this, San Diego’s Little Italy is today a thriving neighborhood that has become an example for other redevelopment projects in San Diego County. In this piece have tried to note changes that have occurred more recently in the Little Italy area, and have incorporated them to the proposals of an earlier time.

When a place has been altered, abandoned or reconstituted, there remains a memory or presence that could be termed location. The memory that location entails can help trigger social memory through urban landscape. San Diego’s Little Italy functions between definitions of place and location. The absence of place but the presence of location opens up otherwise unachievable possibility to recuperate, re-establish and recondition a past toward the establishment of a previously apparently unavailable present.

As should be the case with urban reconstruction projects, the gathering of cultural and historical background information on the particular area facilitates and ensures the success of a project in the eyes of the population itself. These aspects were all-important aids in our projection of the work toward a future that situated this not merely as an isolated “reconstruction.” To this end, both the art of the mosaic, an Italian art-form that might be used as both aesthetic and historical markers, and its basic element of “tessera,” the squares that compose the design, were adopted to imply the function of Little Italy as a tessera within the mosaic that is San Diego. Being a participant in the re-collection of this community’s history, I try to consider the community’s internal identities, and the stories that are not part of an official discourse on the area, in order to re-propose the community to itself. Among these is a consideration of present demographics and development along-side the community’s past history and culture in an attempt to first and foremost asses the feasibility of a continued presence of a Little Italy within San Diego’s changing understanding of itself as a border city.

A little background to San Diego’s Little Italy Unique Character

Today’s demographics of Little Italy differ from what was once a predominantly Italian community. Currently, a large portion of the population is Mexican or Central American and, given socio-economic realities, it is also of a lower income level. The flavor along India Street (the main thoroughfare) remains predominantly, though not exclusively, Italian maintained by a variety of caffès and restaurants. Of its own, San Diego’s Italian community is rather interesting and unique among its American relations. There are two major groups that make up its population. One group comes from the province of Liguria, more precisely from the town of Riva Trigoso, while the other comes from Sicily, mostly from the town of Porticello. The main industry of the area was tuna fishing, representing a tradition documented by authors such as Giovanni Verga and filmmakers such as Luchino Visconti, in his landmark 1948 film The Earth Trembles.

Having said that, there is no lack of representation of the regional diversity of Italy itself, with families who also trace their roots to the Piemonte, the Marche, and the regions around Rome and Naples. Italian regional identity is a site of explicit linguistic and cultural differences. It is directly tied to the socio‑economic and political developments within the Italian nation that, in many ways, both produced and manipulated emigration to the U.S. and other destinations. And, while these differences are less emphatic among Italians in the US, they are nevertheless present, as some of the interviews I carried out seem to point out.

San Diego’s Little Italy developed in a more integrative manner than is usual for such immigrant enclaves. In places such as New York and Chicago, the immigrant population often fragmented into homogeneous zones that reflected regional, urban or other such affiliations. This difference is most likely the effect of migration patterns. Even while the San Diego Union newspaper noted “the arrival of several Italian fishermen” back in 1871, San Diego does not appear to have been a primary focus of emigrant Italians. In fact, most Italians came to settle in San Diego from other American cities and, in this context, 1906 represents a watershed year for Italian migration into San Diego. The San Francisco earthquake and a smaller influx from San Pedro, where fishermen that hailed from Naples and Ischia had settled, caused the Italian population to swell. These people joined local populations of Mexican, Japanese, and Portuguese in the still small fishing enterprises, and they would become major players in the establishment and growth of the tuna fishing industry in years to come. Frances Marline Stephenson remembers the character of the little enclave fondly:

We all worked together. But what I admired about our neighborhood was that we had Greek and we had Mexican – remember Amelia? … And we had one Black family… and the beautiful thing about this, these people we still see, and if they were hungry and my mother knew it, she’d bring a big bowl of pasta over there, and then when they knew that things were really kind of skinny at our house, she’d bring tamales.

While not all Italians in San Diego were fishermen, the fishing industry clearly helped establish many other businesses. Supply and grocery stores, as the Di Falco’s, Bernardini’s and Zolezzi’s were directly affected by the ups and downs of the fishing fleet. And, without the Cutri family providing insurance for many of the boats and their crews, the uncertainties of damage or injury might have created havoc in the lives of the fishing families. Then there were those families involved in real estate, who made it possible for many others to acquire homes for themselves and, eventually, for their children. But beyond the confines of Little Italy, the fishing fleet became a source of wealth for the city of San Diego itself.

Our Lady of the Rosary, the still active local church, was erected in 1925. Its history parallels the ups and downs of the community itself. The most impressive effort in its behalf was the organization of fishermen’s committee in 1943 to ensure its success. According to an agreement signed in the year of its founding, the committee promised to donate “25 cents for each and every ton of fish” that the boats sold. These funds were to be collected for the purpose of liquidating the debt that had been incurred by the church. The signatories to this agreement, owners of fishing boats, reflect the names that have come to be among the most recognizable both within the Italian community and beyond it: Alioto, Bregante, Castagnola, Cresci, Crivello, DiMareno, Ghio, Guidi, Stagnaro, Vattuone, Zolezzi …

With the outbreak of World War II, many men joined the ranks of the U.S. Armed Forces to defend their country, and the fishermen were caught in a rather odd situation. On the one hand, the fishing was fruitful during those years of high intensity production and stoking of the war machine, but on the other hand many lost their boats.

They ordered us into Panama, and we had some fish on the boat. We unloaded that onto another boat, and they seized…our boat right in Panama and provided transportation for us to come back to the States… They took that boat, and we were in the process of building another boat… and they even took that one. So, from my family, they took our livelihood, really. (Andrea Castagnola)

Despite the strong proof of citizenship that these families and individuals furnished through their participation in the country’s institutions and in their day-to-day lives, their foreignness sometimes became the focus of officialdom. Though by no means equal to the injustices heaped upon Japanese Americans, in terms of numbers of people affected and the time period in which these events took place, Italians too became suspect, their allegiance questioned and, for some, internment became a reality.

What happened was that they weren’t allowed to go out fishing, and they were restricted not to go down to the waterfront. But as far as like the Japanese, they didn’t do that.

… There were a lot of Japanese. They owned several fishing boats, and they were very successful, but finally when the war broke out … in fact, we had a radio operator that was Japanese. Well, his parents were Japanese, and he was on the boat during the war, and when we got into Panama, boy, they had FBI, whoever, government men cam right on and knew that we had him. (A. Castagnola)

I’ll tell you what happened to my father that was the most shocking thing to us. … My brother was in the navy already, and my father, when he came to the United States; he took out his first papers. He intended to take the second papers out, but he just never did. … One day I came home from work, and I had just walked in the door, and all of a sudden I heard the doorbell ring, and I went to the door and there’s these two guys in black suits, and I thought, “Gee, who are they?” … And he said, “Well, we’re with the government, and we want to discuss something with you about Mr. Marline.” … He opened up the brief case and pulled out all these papers, and, gee, here was my father when he came from Italy. I mean, they had everything. … He said, “There is a concentration camp.” I went up there; I know where it is. It was in Pleasanton, California, and there were Italians in there… He said, “Your father is going to have to be placed into one of these camps.” “Over my dead body!” I said.

(Frances Marline Stephenson)

These unfortunate incidents did not, however, curb people’s beliefs in the positive aspects of life in a country chosen by themselves or their parents to provide a secure future for their families. And, they did not discourage those men and women who were directly threatened from asserting their faith in the country they had made their own. For example, after gaining citizenship, and thus having avoided the camps, Federico Marline answered daughter Frances’ question “Pa, you are an American citizen now?” by declaring “I’ve always been an American citizen. What do they know? I was always an American.”

Figure 2 Our Lady of the Rosary Church

One of the most impressive descriptions of San Diego’s Italian American community is to be found in Lorenzo Madalena’s Confetti for Gino (1959). Though certainly a work of fiction, Madalena's novel recounts the stories of a neighborhood, as they were perceived through the eyes of a former altar boy at Our Lady of the Rosary Church. It just so happens that this landmark and center of social and religious significance had its beginnings in the home of Madalena's parents, Cesare and Matilda. It was their little house at Columbia and Date that became the nucleus of what would later grow into the church and hall that serves the surrounding community to this day.

An excerpt from Madalena’s novel, which was a Doubleday Book of the Month selection back in its day (soon to be reissued by Guernica Editions), gives a flavor of the life of Little Italy’s fishermen of days past:

Gino DeMarino nervously jerked his gray-visored fishing cap over his eyes, rubbed his hard palms over faded navy dungarees, and for the tenth time slapped the spokes of the wheel he had taken over at noon, an hour ago.

“Come on, bestia bastardo! Where the hell are you?”

Thrusting his head forward, Gino peered at the ocean. The water sparkled under the hot September sun. He squinted his eyes for the slightest sign of a ripple which might give the position of a school of albacore. Then, completing his ritual, he leaned from the wheelhouse and glanced at the stern of the Stella del Mare to check briefly on his crew.

(Madalena, Confetti for Gino)

Over the years a number of factors contributed to the decline of Little Italy as a place where Italians lived. Sadly, the most devastating blows to the community were dealt in the name of progress. As Italians worked their way up in the social and economic ranks of the city, some tended to move away from what was in essence an ethnically defined place. Then, with the completion of Highway 5 in 1962, the cohesiveness of Little Italy was irreparably shattered and altered. The highway disrupted the neighborhood and caused many to relocate outside of its immediate area.

Figure 3 A Corner of Little Italy with Highway 5 Cutting Overhead

The disappointment at the dispersal of friends and families due to the scarring of Highway 5 is still evident in speaking to many that grew up in the area. Following this, the demise of the fishing industry, due to pressures to market what has come to be known as dolphin‑safe tuna, sapped further life from the area. A fleet that once numbered about 150 vessels has been reduced to not more than a dozen boats that today fish mostly out of Samoa. The sting of this turn of events is evident in the voices of the retired fishermen, now in their 70s and 80s, who built the fishing industry that gave so much to the city of San Diego. It seems that once more it could be said, as Andrea Castagnola did regarding the impounding of vessels during WWII, “they took our livelihood, really.” As a result, Little Italy, having lost much of its Italian residential identity, turned into a shell of itself, with the physical remnants of an Italian past represented by shops and a scattering of landmarks.

India Street

India Street is between Broadway and Interstate 5; in this small space of blocks some 150 families of Sicilian and Genoese form a community that is untouched by the fast-paced plastic world of high-rise apartments and super shopping centers; for the most part the men here are people of the sea; ..(July 28, 1969)

My work in Little Italy began a little further back than the redevelopment project time frame. Most of it began to take shape around a California Council for the Humanities project conceived by the then San Diego director Ralph Lewin. The CCH project included the collection of oral histories, photographs to enrich the San Diego Historical Society’s archive, and the writing of a historical and cultural piece that was then published in pamphlet form and circulated in the community. This attracted the attention of the local Public Broadcast Television station and what resulted was a documentary on Little Italy that continues to air to this day on KPBS. In reviewing that documentary and the material collected during the initial portion of the project, it is evident that what is ensuing today had been in the mind of many for years. What was the appeal of a return to some location that had almost been erased from memory? Why was interest now emerging in a neighborhood that had been all but forgotten, except by a few who still sought along its main street, India Street, the trappings of familiar social engagement?

Figure 4 Street Signage

While India Street is generally recognized, or referred to, as the heart of Little Italy, the community’s actual boundaries are quite extensive. They can be traced north along the length of India Street, south into the downtown and Santa Fe Rail station, east past the scarring of Highway 5, and west to San Diego Harbor. The origins of the name India Street are bound in legend, myth, and popular history. Some suggest that it may have been named after the fishing ship that is now a floating museum in the San Diego Harbor. Some of the forefathers of the fishermen who manned the Little Italy fishing fleet were among the men who sailed on the Star of India. However, the naming of the street precedes the arrival of the ship.

Others have linked the name of India Street to the presence of an Indian village in the proximity of the area that was to become Little Italy. This seems to be mostly legend, since there apparently was no Indian village nearby. Nevertheless, we find testimonies such as this one, dating back to 1935, stating that the name “should be pronounced “Indee-a,” according to Charles Kelly, or what in Spanish Californian means “squaw.” Indio was masculine for Indian and India was feminine. It is also said that there was an Indian racherio on India between Cedar and Date, and that the street was named after the squaws.” And others still have linked the name to the attempt to name street after the oceans of the world and, in following the Pacific Coast Highway, India is thought to stand for Indian Ocean.

Whatever the origin of the name may be it is certain that this area of San Diego has been long associated with its Italian inhabitants, one of the more colorful and resilient populations to settle the city. And, as the Genovese explorer once set out for the Indies and found what was to become America, any visitor to this neighborhood should not only remain on the main thoroughfare but set out from India to discover the rest of San Diego’s Little Italy.

It is not surprising that, given its historic precedent, this previously prosperous center of labor and industry that for a time was the home of one of San Diego’s richest industries, should once again be thought of in terms of its initial promise. As it was stated during the early days of this city’s development, and as I believe these reconstructive concepts and strategy reflect, this is bound to become the main business street connecting this city with Old Town. (February 3, 1888) Indeed, with the construction of the new residential and commercial projects, the Little Italy project will form an integral dimension of what promises to be a most attractive commercial, pedestrian and social corridor.

A Vocabulary for Reconstruction and Commemoration

In order to ensure the survival of the neighborhood, to emphasize and support its commercial success, Little Italy must reflect the culture and tradition that gives the location its name. For this reason, cultural presence must go hand in hand with economic and commercial redevelopment. What has helped Little Italy make a transition from an apparently devastated place to a thriving example of reconditioning, if not the spirit that many of its past residents kept alive? Religious rituals associated with the church and community resisted the momentary physical disintegration and regu­lar events, such as the Madonna del Lume celebrations and procession, testified to the vibrancy of Italian American life in San Diego. The thread of culture ties location to history and tradition and keeps the fire alive that today has found fuel in redevelopment. This is the character that makes Little Italy unique as a redevelopment project. The stimulus and drive for the re-establishment of this neighborhood came about as a result of what had been there historically and what that history still holds as a potential direction to exploit for new economic, social and cultural growth.

Figure 5 Madonna del Lume Procession

The Madonna del Lume, protector of the fishermen, is cel­ebrated concurrently in San Diego and the town of Porticello, ancestral home of many of the Sicilian fisher­men. The yearly Blowout Ball, under the care of the Cresci family as organizers and historians, was initiated in 1946 as a celebration of the end of World War II and still brings families together to reminisce and celebrate. The Fishmongers Association's monthly dinners and special events keep the spirit of the fishing fleet and its history alive. The continued success of the Columbus Day Celebrations and Street Fair, coordinated in part by the Little Italy Association and which today integrates a yearly Madonnari contest know as “Chalk La Strada.” The Italian Community Center, with its language classes and events. The Italian American Arts Foundation, which recently hosted the “Con le nostre mani” exhibit from Oakland. These are some of the agencies and their activities that keep the life-blood of Little Italy flowing along-side the thriving businesses, thereby providing a cultural energy that makes Little Italy a popular area of San Diego.

Figure 6 Chalk La Strada Competition During Columbus Day Festa

As the neighborhood continues on its path of revitalization, attention to design concepts at the material and the imaginative level that directly reflect and/or recount India street’s historical and cultural legacies, will be possible to maintain, regain, and re-enforce the charm that makes Little Italy a unique neighborhood.

The historical and cultural background of India Street/Little Italy requires that it emerge, at least in part, out of a well-established and recognizable vocabulary. In order to fully exploit and emphasize the social environment that is associated with Mediterranean cultures, the terms by which that environment will be re-presented here must be equally functional and enticing. The main elements of this socio/cultural language are most likely to be found in the communal activities of family (in its extended terms) and work (with all its associated groupings and supporting structures).

For example, while the fishing industry was indeed the major source of labor that engaged the men of Little Italy, other peripheral occupations were necessary to the survival of the fishing fleet. Along with these supporting structures one must count the family. Indeed, the role of women as keepers of the home, while men were out at sea for months at-a-time, is all important. But women also helped with the upkeep when the ships were in at port. They mended nets, the repaired clothing, and helped re-integrate the men into the familial and societal framework. An integration of this particular cultural vocabulary, though present in some symbolic imagery of these activities would appear to be wholly warranted.

In addition to these elements, the visual and symbolic vocabulary of the reconstruction should also reflect particularities of the diverse cultures present in the area. This should be regarded not only along lines of Italian, Mexican or Portuguese, but also for the specific characteristics of the two major groups within the Italian sector that have clear and distinguishable cultural backgrounds: the Genoese and the Sicilian. Some of the cultural symbology of these two regions should be incorporated in the reconstruction in the way of signs and symbols, whether from the natural or man-made world, specific to each culture.

As an example, a 1993 issue of the Italian design journal Abitare on recent renovations in earthquake-devastated towns in Sicily provides some of the examples for re-adaptation of traditional designs toward a contemporary use. Road patterning, sidewalk and pedestrian spaces, social gathering areas, historic sites, all have to maintain the integrity of their history and design as well as be made functional and unobtrusive for current use. How does one, for example, integrate an old artifact within a reconstructed road or sidewalk? Or should these artifacts be preserved and maintained in some type of local museum? How is space determined to be a gathering area, aside from the most obvious placements of benches and tables? How can the flavor of a foreign place be transplanted elsewhere? Landscaping would certainly be a term of cultural signage that might be employed to represent the crossover of cultures in this area. Aromatic plants (sages, rosemary, myrtle, laurels, etc.) and Mediterranean type plants (which would be more adaptable to the San Diego environment) would provide this at the visual, physical and olfactory levels. Other strategies for this sort of more subtle cultural emphasis are associated with the use of building materials, patterning, visual emphasis. Tile, colored granites, etc. are some of the primary materials adequate for this exercise.

Gateways to the Area

At the time during which I carried out my work as a consultant, a number of gateway signage possibilities and preferences were proposed for India Street. Most of them were based on existing examples in the San Diego area (Hillcrest, El Cajon Blvd., North Park) all of which have large, road-spanning art-deco style signs that announce the neighborhood. It was my opinion at the time, and it remains unaltered, that, given the unique character of Little Italy, a gateway to the area should also be unique in appearance and in its effect of creating a transition into the neighborhood. Signage creates and circumscribes an urban environment even though we may not be aware of its presence. In fact, signage works almost subconsciously by inserting a person into a context with all sorts of information at his disposal that can make the experience of a landscape that much more pleasant. Signage might include historical and cultural elements and not necessarily only traffic direction.

In my opinion, the best way to relate these elements to Little Italy would be through vegetation and street construction, the former for the creation of a gateway and historical signage for the latter. A constriction of current traffic lanes would create an entryway, which would also work to slow traffic. At both sides of this new constriction I envisioned large Mediterranean cypress pines. These pines are not found anywhere else in San Diego and they are specific to an environment and ecosystem that is associated with the population of the area. The island areas in the town of Carmel are very Mediterranean in style and provide a sort of “signpost” for those arriving at the main street. These entrance ways could be repeated at various spots around the Little Italy neighborhood: selected roads up from Pacific Highway, selected roads down from highway 5 and downtown streets, along India street from downtown, and at Laurel as one exits Little Italy.

Figure 7 Old Sidewalk Caption: Macaroni Factory

How are Historical Sites to be signaled and functionally integrated into the foot traffic flow? This question may well be answered by the existing flow of foot traffic during specific cultural events. For example, it might be that the flow patterns of the processions and festas could help us visualize and integrate these activities into the design of the area. The procession routes appear to have remained almost unaltered over the decades. In accordance to this the roadway might be patterned to reflect this movement that not only traces a route but which marks, with its associated stops (where donations are pinned to the Madonna) and other elements particular to the processions, the areas historical landmarks.

Similarly, a number of other less obvious historical elements can be included under this category. Pavement imprints, manhole covers and utilities covers, all provide a self-referenced history of the various developmental phases of the area.

Figure 8 Vince's Barber Shop

Manhole covers and other such devices can in turn be customized to reflect particularities of the general design proposed for the area. Various casting possibilities exist for this purpose. Imagine a parking sign used to denote an historical presence. Photographs or narrative can be silk-screened on the metal rectangles and augment traffic directions with cultural or historical information. Horse hitch rings are present at a couple of sites along India Street (at the corner with Cedar & at the Filippi’s parking lot entrance). These are valuable representations of past customs, technologies and needs, and in that spirit they deserve to be preserved.

Structural Historic Correspondences:

A way to imagine cultural layering and presence.

The following is a list of characteristics of Little Italy previous to or part of the new developments.

Amici Park is a residential garden or park that was developed in the early stages of projected reconstitution. It sits across from Our Lady of the Rosary church and near the neighborhood’s elementary school that many Italian Americans attended in their youth. This project includes a bocce court and an amphitheater for community events.

Harbor Marine Building, at India and Beech, is a long-standing marine supplies shop. It has been refurbished and kept almost intact. It is now surrounded by newly constructed residential and commercial properties.

Southernmost house designed by an Italian architect in California. This used to sit across from the Harbor Marine building. This home is now gone. A new residential building has been situated in this block. Whereabouts of what might have been an historical site, unknown.

Today, Vincenzo’s Restaurant (closed since the writing of this piece) is where a few years ago the Indigo Grill restaurant was. This site once was the home of the local Butcher Shop. Indigo Grill has now re-opened in the commercial spaces within the Villa Maria Complex that spans India from Beech to Cedar.

The Pensione Hotel, beneath which are Vincenzo’s and Caffè Italia was once the site of the Bernardini Building. The tiled nameplate bearing the Bernardini name was re-incorporated in the façade of the Hotel.

Across the street from the Pensione Hotel is the home of the San Diego weekly publication, The Reader. This non-descript building with reflecting windows and industrial paint exterior sits on prime land on India and Date streets, occupying valuable social space. The Reader is of little apparent value to the community. In fact, it has had a rather antagonistic relationship with Little Italy through the publication of sensationalist articles on the San Diego “mob”. This was the site of one of the community’s most respected businesses, the De Falco Grocery shop.

Underneath the Pensione Hotel, and next door to Vincenzo’s, is the Caffè Italia. This is one of the first Italian coffeehouses to have made an appearance on India Street and quiet a popular one for its contemporary deco. It occupies today what once was the Merline family house.

Up Date Street, and attached to the Our Lady of the Rosary church, is the Italian Community Center. This house is a somewhat altered version of the Madalena house belonging to the parents of writer Lawrence Madalena, and site of the first Church in San Diego’s Little Italy.

Next up on Date, directly behind the Community Center, is Our Lady of the Rosary Church. As I have reported above, the church was consecrated in 1925. Its ceilings are adorned with frescoes that were commissioned of the Italian artist Fausto Tasca. These frescoes represent a little know treasure housed within the community.

Further along India Street, as the concentration of Italian Restaurants and Caffès dwindles, there are other landmarks reminiscent of the old community. On the east side of India is Nelson’s Photo Store, site of what was once the local Drug Store and Soda Fountain. Many of the old residents I spoke with reminisced about hanging out and about at the old drug store as children.

Next door to Nelson’s Photo is a building that has had a number of tenants, among which most recently have been a costume shop and currently a photography portrait studio. This building’s identity is almost rendered clear by its shape. This was the old local cinema, the Avalon Theatre that provided the community with some of its entertainment.

Further down, on the western side of the road, and spanning along Ivy between India and Kettner, are the Ben Hur Coffee Buildings.

Figure 10 Ben Hur Coffee Building

On the same side of India, but further along still, on the corner at Kalmia and India, are an old Dry Cleaner’s shop and what was once most likely some sort of machine shop. Both of these are now Antique shops.

All of the above reflect how India Streets might originally have been conceived to function as a link between Old Town and Down Town. That heart-line was broken by a variety of distinct events that compounded the isolation as they took place. The refurbishing of these old buildings, their use for uses contemporary to the needs of a city such as San Diego, has slowly reconstituted a link with downtown San Diego. Today we could revisit the statement, this is bound to become the main business street connecting this city with Old Town (February 3, 1888) with renewed hope and vision, a vision that has already in part come true.

Part of the redevelopment of India Street/Little Italy is meant to reconstitute the area as a desirable residential neighborhood. The changes are perceptible and visible almost daily. Five new residential and commercial projects are well under way or completed. Five projects under five different developers and designers. This approach, rather that creating a homogenous look, has introduced a diversity of concepts, designs and color schemes that (will) make of the neighborhood a pleasant social environment and attract visitors from other areas of the city.

Major Religious Holidays and Processions, Festas and Street Fairs

Italians are among those populations that maximize their social space in their everyday lives and for special events. Therefore it is of utmost importance that the street environment reflect this cultural need. Sidewalk caffès and dining, gathering areas for passing the time people-watching or discussing sports, politics or family are all necessary components in the creation and maintenance of a safe and active social space.

The streets that host religious and community gatherings are also the streets where most of the businesses and historic landmarks are situated. The harbor remains a point of reference for much of the community’s history; in the present, poor planning has obstructed sight and view lines to the harbor. This most valuable visual property has been all but erased and should somehow be re-integrated into the area’s character, possibly by using the side streets as pedestrian galleries emphasizing the view to the west.

While San Diego’s Italian American population puts these spaces to use quite efficiently, there is a large component of non-Italian Americans who flock to the area during lunch and dinner hours, during weekends and evenings for the caffès and comfortable atmosphere. The following are some of the special events that bring crowds beyond a normal number to the area. They are followed by brief descriptions.

Madonna del Lume

A religious celebration that includes a mass at Our Lady of the Rosary, a procession, and a post procession gathering. The post-mass preparations for the procession take place outside in front of the church (across from the new Amici Park). The procession proceeds down along State to Cedar, where it turns west toward the water. At India Street the procession turns North and moves along this avenue, making pre-determined stops for the faithful to express their devotion and offer their donations (which are pinned to the Madonna. One of the stops is in front of Caffè Italia, most likely a remnant of when it used to be the Merline house. Even though this is a Sicilian celebration and the Merline family was from the Marche region, they were a religious family. Frances Merline Stephenson, who now lives outside of the immediate area, returns with frequency to worship at the church and is a member of societies such as that of the Immacolata. The procession then moves along to Hawthorn, where it turns west again to reach the Harbor. Down on the docks, where the fleet was once blessed, the procession halts so that some of the remaining fishing vessels can be blessed. After the blessing and various other prayers and ceremonies, the procession begins its return to the church.

Addolorata

The Addolorata is also a celebration that is held yearly and organized by a woman’s committee. The church is the center of organization for this celebration, which includes mass, dinners, and other social gatherings.

Columbus Day

This celebration was only recently moved to the Little Italy area. In conjunction with it, the Little Italy Business Association has begun to organize a streetfair that grows in scope and area year after year. The Parade takes place along Harbor Blvd. with the street fair situated along India and its branches, usually from Cedar approximately to Fir. As with other street fairs, this is attended by a great number of San Diegans who have come to appreciate the Italian atmosphere. The Little Italy street fairs have become enormously popular. Where the fair once took place in a small area less than a block long, today these celebrations run about six blocks and have attracted a new and more diverse variety of vendors and spectators. This year approximately 65,000 people attended the Columbus Day Festa.

Sicilian Days

Organized by the Sicilian portion of the community, and mostly by the Trinacria Club, this street fair is also a favorite among San Diegans in general. It takes place in the same area as the above fair and attracts thousands.

In closing, it seems almost banal to say that there are so many aspects to deal with in such a revitalization project that it would impossible to list in this short space. The fact is that, locations such as San Diego’s Little Italy, once a minor representative in comparison to North America’s other Little Italies, are today offering a way to reconsider historical and social space. This particular Little Italy, with its sidewalk banners of famous Italian and Italian Americans, with its Street Fairs and Religious Processions, with its highly stylized condominiums and fashionable caffès and restaurants, this Little Italy is an anomaly in the contemporary world of Little Italies.

All around the country Little Italies are shrinking, some for the same reasons that almost obliterated San Diego’s neighborhood. But here, along India Street, Little Italy is growing again. It is not the traditional space that others have known elsewhere. It is different, but it is nevertheless in the spirit of an evolving relationship of the Italian American community with the city of San Diego that this difference has given the location new life. And, it is expanding, as other Little Italies are not. The residents may not be overwhelmingly Italian, but the culture of the place most definitely is. And there is an urgency in the air that makes of this San Diego neighborhood a front line for cultural reconstitution and preservation. The church and Father Grancini, the Little Italy Association with Marco Limandri, the Italian American Arts Foundation with Robert Marino and countless other individuals and groups, are banding together to create here what is in essence a living archive of Italian American life.

Reference Sources and Acknowledgments

Thanks go to Robert Marino, who reviewed this piece and offered feedback on a number of issues.

I would also like to acknowledge the input of Lynn Susholtz and Aida Mancillas, who were collaborators and consultants in the initial phases of the design concepts of the reconstruction project. Many of the ideas expressed in this piece were discussed and developed with them.

Madalena, Lorenzo. Confetti for Gino. Doubleday, 1959/Guernica, 2003.

Verdicchio, Pasquale. Interview with Andrea Castagnola. San Diego.

___________________. Interview with Frances Marline Stephenson. San Diego.