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Dyker Heights by Jennifer Cohen from Pavement Pieces on Vimeo.

The Christmas lights in Dyker Heights, Brooklyn, are as bright as Times Square without the billboards.

“I love taking people to see these lights, everybody’s happy and they become a kid again,” said Angela Christianson, Tour Guide for A Slice of Brooklyn Bus Tours, which charges $50 for a tour of the spectacle.

The predominantly Italian-American neighborhood has become a mainstream holiday tourist attraction with thousands treking from Manhattan to Brooklyn each year to see a handful of houses that spend thousands on Christmas decorations. Front lawns are covered in decorations from a 15-foot tall Santa, to carousels, to snowmen, angels, toy soldiers, reindeer, and hundreds of lights in green, red, and white.

“We joke around Rockefeller Center? FUHGETTABOUDIT, but when you come here to Brooklyn you’re seeing what homeowners are doing whether they are doing it themselves or getting companies to pay,” said Tony Muia owner of A Slice of Brooklyn Bus Tours. “Its sort of like a different feeling than being rushed on those sidewalks of Manhattan to see something Christmas related whether it’s the windows or the tree.”

Many homes participate in the neighborhood Christmas decorating tradition, but some take it over the top.

The Karounos home sits on 84th Street between 11th and 12th Avenue in the heart of the neighborhood. Their two family home is decorated with a blow up Santa, nativity scene, and the words Merry Christmas written in green and red. The family has been living in the neighborhood for seven years. They had different decorations two years ago that fell apart, so they switched it up by adding the inflatable decorations.

“It’s always been going on and my Dad and us eventually did it too,” said Elias Karounos, 13. “We love it, we help decorate, and it’s really fun. Everyone comes down the block and it’s all happy.”

Two doors down from the Karounos’ lives the woman who is believed to have started the whole tradition in the area, Lucy Spata. During the tour Christianson, told the story of Spata and how she moved to Dyker Heights in 1986 and began her Christmas tradition by putting up 40 angels in honor of her mother.

Christianson said many neighbors complained about Spata’s bright decorations and wanted her to take them down, but she would just say to them, ‘If you don’t like them well then move.”

No one moved and Spata, in spite, began putting up even more decorations, Christianson said. Eventually more neighbors started putting up decorations and created competition.

“Someone started with one Santa then somebody came out with Santa and reindeers then the other came out with Santa, reindeers, and frosty,” said Joe Igneri, 62, of Dyker Heights.

Today Spata’s home is completely covered, head to toe with Santa’s, angels, bright colored lights, toy soldiers, and snowmen. It is so bright it takes a minute for onlooker’s eyes to adjust. There is a gentleman’s agreement and the lights go off at 1 a.m. so neighbors can sleep.

Lucy Spata’s home in Dyker Heights, is completely covered in Christmas decorations. Spata started the Christmas tradition in the neighborhood in 1986 with just 40 angels. Photo by Jennifer Cohen

“She does this for joy, she’s done this all her life,” said Joe Spatola, a friend of Spata who helps her decorate. “Even if nobody came she would still do it.”

It takes a lot of time to turn Dyker Heights into Christmas Town.

“I spent $5500 on my decorations,” said Angelo Branciforte.

Branciforte hired B&R Christmas Decorators. The company has worked on over 80 homes in the area already this season and it takes them around 30 hours to finish a large home.

Angelo Branciforte’s home in Dyker Heights was decorated by B & R Christmas Decorators for $5500. Photo by Jennifer Cohen

Some of the homes in the area are worth millions of dollars and tourists love to gawk at the Christmas bling.

“We were reading on the Internet and saw the lights,” said Laura Romera, of Madrid, Spain. “It’s very different and it’s very nice too.”

Some neighbors like the tours.

“It brings a little satisfaction to them when they see that people come to the neighborhood,” said Tony Muia, owner of A Slice of Brooklyn Bus Tours.

But others find it chaotic.

“Just talking about the lights, we really like that people come, but sometimes it’s just really hectic,” said Noel Girgenti, 22. “You get the attention but then you have to deal with it, to pull out of the driveway is the hardest part.”

The Girgenti’s put up their decorations on their home by themselves compared to other houses in the neighborhood. Photo by Jennifer Cohen

The Girgenti family, who have lived in the area for 50 years, do their own decorating. They have seen more and more people venture to Dyker Heights each December. But as more people come there is more traffic and parking spaces have been taken away for home owners and replaced by tour buses at night.

But not all the homeowners fill the need to join the display.

“My wife and I she feels like inside is better than outside,” said Igneri. “I’m not here to show off or anything. It’s a more personal thing than a more elaborate thing.”

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The red, white and green clad streets of Little Italy yesterday afternoon were empty. Hundreds of vendor tents lined the walkways, selling everything from pizza and cannolis to Italian flags and clothing, But customers were scarce.

Despite crowds being thin, expectations among the vendors were up with over a million visitors expected during the 89th year of the Feast of San Gennaro.

The annual feast is meant to keep the spirit and faith of the Italian immigrants alive, and to pay tribute to the patron saint of Naples, San Gennaro. Thousands of Italians emigrated from Naples, Italy, to the lower Manhattan neighborhood of Little Italy over a century ago in search of a better life. But the descendants of the immigrants have long moved to Brooklyn, Staten Island and beyond. Only a few Italian stores and restaurants which stand as reminders of the bustling Italian neighborhood it once was

Vendor Rose Lansang, of Bayonne, NJ said she knew why business was slow. The feast started right after Labor Day and had other holidays stacked behind it.

“[The visitors] just came back from their holiday, then the Jewish holiday was approaching, so you know, their minds were set on school opening, not on the feast,” she said.

Lansang and her daughter, Dorothy Lansang, are the owners of Street Fair Cosmetics based in New Jersey. They have had a stand in the festival for over 25 years.

The duo’s beauty stand on the corner of Mott and Hester Street sold discounted cosmetics, including body lotions, bath products, makeup kits, and hundreds of nail polish colors just waiting to be bought.

Liza Nagelkirk, 26, of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, was hoping to see bigger crowds.
This was her first year working the festival as the event manager of Gelso & Grand restaurant, and her spot was at the wooden high-top window bar serving food and alcohol to passersby.

Liza Nagelkirk, the manager of Gelso & Grand, awaits the influx of customers the sunny weekend weather is predicted to bring. Photo by Leann Garofolo

“We started off with it being rainy, and so that was difficult for people,” Nagelkirk said of the thin crowds. “I think a lot of people put it off because they knew this weekend coming up was going to be nice, and they’re like, we’ll just go. I think it’s going to be swamped this weekend”

Fabrizio Facchetti, 21, an Italian immigrant who lives in the Bronx, worked out
of a makeshift café stand in front of the Christmas in New York Store, which also happened to be his second job. He compared scooping gelato and preparing cappuccino to his days as a pastry chef in Milan. He was hopeful the crowds would come.

“Everybody, maybe they are working,” Facchetti said. “Most of [the customers right now] are tourists from all parts of the world, like Italy, Asia, South America. But tonight is going to be busy, trust me.”

Camille Welsh, of Naples, Italy, has assisted her family in working at the stand for their restaurant, the Mulberry Street Bar, for 72 years. Welsh grew so accustomed to Little Italy that she moved to Mulberry Street to live permanently, just a short distance from her family bar, which also boasted Thursday karaoke nights and weekly comedy shows.

Welsh’s familiarity with the festival helps her understand the occasional lull in business.

“Now it’s the middle of the day,” she said. “People are still at work, lunch time is really over, dinner didn’t start yet. It comes in spurts.”

A few idle visitors walked by to check out the various homemade pizzas lining the picnic table style stand for the family’s bar. They walked away empty-handed.

“You never know how crowded it is going to be,” she continued. “So, it’s like anything else. It’s like the weather. You don’t know if the sun is going to come or the rain. So, whatever happens, happens.”

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Over 100 years ago, Little Italy was a neighborhood spread out for over a dozen blocks, stuffed to the brim with Italian immigrant families who lived and worked there to achieve the American dream. But today its size has shrunk from a heaping plate of spaghetti to a mere forkful. The neighborhood stretches only about four blocks, which are filled with tourist shops and restaurants pushing “the best homemade” cannolis and meatballs around.

What was once a home to thousands of Italian immigrants in New York has become what many call a tourist trap. But though the neighborhood has changed, there are some Italian-Americans who refuse to give up their businesses, homes and the true essence of Little Italy. Many believe that those who remain in the neighborhood are what keep its nostalgia alive.

“Little Italy, ain’t only a place, it’s a mind set,” said Ernest Tramontana, a lifetime Little Italy resident.

Hasia Diner, professor and academic chair of Hebrew and Judiac Studies at NYU, said that Italians immigrants moving out of the neighborhood was a positive thing for them because it meant they were making it.

“Little Italy was really the victim of its own success, in as much as the children and for sure the grandchildren of the people who lived there wanted to live in places with yards, if not the actual suburbs,” Diner said.

Vinny Vella, a 3rd generation Italian-American, sat at the little patio outside La Bella Café, at a marble topped table scattered about with lottery scratch tickets, laughing and joking with friends while watching passersby on Mulberry Street.

“Every week we do this,” he said. “We play and then decide who gets what,” he said pointing at the scratch tickets with a hearty laugh, waving his hand adorned with a gold ring on his pinky and chain on his wrist. On the crisp fall afternoon, Vella was dressed to the nines; his black knee-length peat coat and grey grizzly hair toped off the look.

Vinny Vella, 63, is a 3rd generation Italian-American who's lives in Little Italy. He loves New York and the neighborhood because of the hustle and bustle. Photo by Nicole Guzzardi

Vella, 63, is an actor who has lived in Little Italy most his life, and prefers to keep it that way. Though he said the area has changed dramatically since he was young, he can’t seem to bring himself to leave. For Vella, Little Italy still possesses charm and romance.

“I’m still here because I was born here,” he said. “I live here, I lived her all my life, it’s home, where am I gonna go?”

Between 1810 and 1980, over 5.3 million Italians immigrated to the U.S., many fleeing poverty and overpopulation, with over 2 million between 1900 and 1910, according to census information. Many of these Italians settled in Little Italy neighborhoods all over the country, the most famous being in New York.

“For the Italians of New York, Little Italy became the place to go to,” Diner said. “It came to stand for a symbol of authenticity.”

Historically, Little Italy in Lower Manhattan ran north to Bleecker Street and south to Canal Street. It stretched west to Lafayette and east to Bowery Street. Today, the neighborhood has shrunk to a few blocks on a single street. Businesses were once stretched out among the large neighborhood. Now what’s left of the neighborhood lies mainly on Mulberry Street from Broome to Canal streets.

Meanwhile Chinatown, Little Italy’s touching neighborhood, continues to grow in size and numbers, engulfing areas of Little Italy as Asian immigrants continue to flow into the United States. Stores once owned and run by Italians have been sold to Chinese management.

Diner said Chinese immigration was big in the 1960s and still continues to be today.

Vella has his own theory on why the neighborhood changed. Back in the 1940s and 50s when many Italians immigrated to New York, they bought up a lot of buildings for a little money, he said. But as time went on and rent increased, many were forced to sell, or wanted to take the money and make a new life.

“All of a sudden someone comes around in the 70s and 80s and says they’ll give you two million dollars for the building, and they take they money,” he said. “They neva had that kinda money before.”

Many Italians left Little Italy, moving to other parts of New York, like Staten Island and Long Island, he said.

Vella’s father, Louie, started his own fish market on Mott Street in Little Italy, and ran the business for years before selling. Louie was born in New York, but was taken back to Italy with his parents, who were born in Italy, when he was nine months old. He grew up in Italy and came back to New York at 17. He started working as an ice man, saved money, bought a pushcart to sell fish from and eventually opened his own market.

Louie ran the market 41 years before selling. Vella said his father didn’t sell because he needed the money, but because he had to retire. Louie didn’t want to sell the business to anyone but an Italian, Vella said.

“I said ‘Pa, there’s no Italians gonna buy this store. It’s all Chinese right now, you have no choice,’ ” he said.

Eventually he couldn’t keep it up anymore, Vella said, and his father sold the business to a Chinese family, who still runs the market today.

Over the years Vella has watched the neighborhood change.

“There are more tourists now then there were before. Canal Street was the borderline. There was Italians on one side of the street and Chinese on the other,” Vella said.

While there is no doubt the neighborhood is not the size it once was, others believed it hasn’t really changed all that much.

Tramontana, an Italian-American who was raised and still resides in Little Italy, said there are still plenty of Italians living in the area. Tramontana, 30, is president of Sons of Little Italy in New York, an organization dedicated to promoting tradition and culture. He believes the changes the neighborhood has seen are just a natural part of immigration itself.

“This was a Dutch-Irish neighborhood,” he said. “The Dutch-Irish moved to the outer boroughs; it became an Italian neighborhood, the Italians moved to the outer boroughs. It’s the American way.”

Tramontana himself said he too will eventually move from the neighborhood, because when he has a family, he wants to give them a different life, the yard.

Among the Italians who still own space and run businesses in the neighborhood are Italian-American brothers Frank and Nick Angileri. The Angileri brothers have run La Bella Café on Mulberry Street for 41 years. The brothers were both born in Sicily, Italy, and Franky moved to New York by himself at age 17. A few years later his brother Nick came to live in Little Italy as well.

Frank Angilieri, 68, owns La Bella Ferrera Cafe on Mulberry Street in Little Italy. He was raised in Italy and came to New York at age 17. He opened this business with his brother Nick Angilieri 41 years ago. Photo by Nicole Guzzardi

Franky Angileri, 68, thinks the neighborhood changed partly because the younger generation of Italians went to school, became educated and moved out of the neighborhood for more comfort and space. With fewer Italians, the neighborhood began to change, he said.

“Many years ago, Italian people used to control the neighborhood and make sure no other nationalities came; they wanted to keep it Italian. Unfortunately, those kinda people aren’t around anymore,” Angileri said.

“They sold out,” Tramontana said. “They didn’t sell to their own kind. The Chinese came through with shopping bags full of money.”

Tramontana said that organizations in Little Italy have to step up promotion and public relations to bring the “bridge and tunnel” people back to the neighborhood.

“That’s the future of Little Italy, having your locals come back,” he said.

There is no way of knowing how long Little Italy will withstand the economic challenges and overflow of other neighborhoods, but some Italians will stay to keep its essence alive.

“When they stop making a good lasagna, I’m outta here,” Vella said.

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John Raimond displays the hand-made hook he uses in lieu of a more traditional prosthetic attachment in Whitehall Ferry Terminal in Manhattan Raimond, who lost his arm and eye in a car crash two years ago, wears the hook while posing for pictures in in the heated terminal during the coldest winter months. (Meredith Bennett-Smith / Pavement Pieces).

As commuters and tourists hurried through the Manhattan side of Whitehall Ferry Terminal yesterday, “Captain Jack Sparrow,” aka John Raimond, greeted bundled passengers with an iron hook, home-made nose ring and a one-eyed sneer worthy of the fictional pirate hero’s Hollywood alter ego, actor Johnny Depp.

During the winter months, Raimond, 40, of Staten Island, greets ferry passengers here three to five days a week. Posing for pictures with tourists and locals alike, Raimond’s pirate get-up springs from events that hit closer to home than the average street performer’s costume.

After a heavy night of drinking and a fight with his girlfriend in May 2009, Raimond blacked out behind the wheel and ran his vehicle into a ditch. Nine days later, he regained consciousness in an intensive care hospital bed.

“I opened my eyes and I don’t have my left arm,” Raimond said.

While Raimond took the loss of his limb in stride, the loss of his job was harder to swallow. Unable to continue welding commercially, he stumbled across his current profession while watching the film Pirates of the Caribbean.

“I thought to myself, I now have one arm, and I now have one eye,” he said.

One self-welded hook prosthetic and $400 worth of Party City apparel later, the Whitehall Ferry Terminal Captain Sparrow was born.

But Raimond, who has an official permit to act as a pirate, is not the only performer to frequent the warm confines of the Whitehall Terminal. The entryway also plays host to a tin man and golden statue, according to Maria Baluena, of Staten Island, a cashier at one of the terminal’s food counters.

From behind a counter stacked with pizza rolls and hot pretzels, Baluena watches the waves of commuters pass by the various performers as well as a tight-knit contingent of homeless, the terminal’s semi-permanent population.

“[The homeless] all sit over there,” Baluena said, gesturing to a corner of the terminal far from the eyes of the police officers and drug sniffing dogs, yet close to the public bathroom stalls. “There’s the fart guy he farts a lot, and Ritchie, and the Russian guy who repeats the same thing over and over again, and the Pepperoni Lady.”

The group of twenty or so swells during the winter months, Baluena said, while going largely undisturbed by the terminal staff unless they cause a disturbance by throwing food on the floor or feeding the pigeons.

While the homeless keep a low profile, performers who share the warm terminal space with them often attract onlookers from the departing and arriving crowds.

“Excuse me, Mr. Pirate,” said the young woman, interrupting Raimond’s statuesque posing and nudging her toddler forward. “Can he take a picture with you?”

“Argh!” Raimond replied smiling, bending down on one knee, but still managing to dwarf the little boy.

The two walked away without depositing anything in the tip jar hanging from the pirate’s rope belt. But Raimond said he derives much more personal satisfaction than actual revenue from his stints as a swashbuckler.

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