Here's something you might be interested in.
Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed
Big Screen — Movie commentary
Blurt — Music's inside track
Booze News — San Diego spirits
Classical Music — Immortal beauty
Classifieds — Free and easy
Cover Stories — Front-page features
Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes
Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts
Feast! — Food & drink reviews
Feature Stories — Local news & stories
Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore
From the Archives — Spotlight on the past
Golden Dreams — Talk of the town
The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it
Letters — Our inbox
Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites
Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans
Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists
Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news
News Ticker — News & politics
Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated
Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna
Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated
Poetry — The old and the new
Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers
Reading — The hunt for intellectuals
Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails
San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds
SD on the QT — Almost factual news
Sheep and Goats — Places of worship
Special Issues — The best of
Street Style — San Diego streets have style
Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves
Theater — On stage in San Diego this week
Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative
Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work
Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego
Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads
Your Week — Daily event picks
Little Italy – will the flavor last?
Tiny houses, condo towers, India Street, Our Lady of the Rosary, first Italians, Frank Bompensiero
St. Anthony festival: Frank Bompensiero’s sister, mother (center, wearing black), brother-in-law, daughter, and nephews
Tiny rooms in Little Italy
- On a Little Italy plot where a Victorian house stood for more than a century, construction of tiny apartments is underway. The house, built in the 1890s at the corner of Union and Cedar, was demolished in February to make room for an eight-story micro-apartment building and a five-story multi-million dollar home. The apartments will be between 330 and 400 square feet.
- By Julie Stalmer, Nov. 28, 2018
Gone is the Victorian house that stood at Union and Cedar in Little Italy. On their way are 42 microapartments and one luxury home.
In my heart I hate it — arguments with Little Italy's density flacks
- The Little Italy I love has always been its sumptuous food and sensual people, both of which, despite the nouveau riche takeover of late, remain as present and prosperous as ever. That Little Italy is alive in Mona Lisa Italian Foods, the tang of parmesan, the toasty fume of fresh-baked sourdough, the nasal snap of balsamic vinaigrette dousing a saucer of extra-virgin olive oil.
- By Thomas Larson, Jan. 17, 2018
The smell of fish innards was the smell of money.
Big History of Little Italy
- Peter Corona has written of his old neighborhood in a 398-page book called Little Italy: The Way It Was. Photos from the 1930s and 1940s fill the last 72 pages. The book came out in January 2010. San Diego’s Italian neighborhood was “different from the other Little Italys in the United States,” he writes. The Italians here “lived in a more confined geographical area, stayed mostly within that area, and rarely associated with people who were non-Italian.” And Italians moving to San Diego from other U.S. cities did not always appreciate it.
- By Joe Deegan, May 11, 2011
The spiritual and cultural center of Little Italy, Our Lady of the Rosary Catholic Church
Census
- Friday, April 16, 2010
- Mimmo’s Italian delicatessen on India Street, Little Italy, 12:22–1:00 p.m.
- People: 87
- Men: 62
- Women: 25
- People stopping on the sidewalk to read menu sign: 8
- Toolbelted handyman working in the restaurant: 1
- Men in jeans: 24
- Men wearing ties: 4
- Women in jeans: 19
- By Ernie Grimm, July 7, 2010
Little Italy
Little Italy
- India at Date & Fir
- Saturday afternoon
- Tourists gamble on the best bet: lines at Filippi’s shout family; couples next door say “Table for two”; across the street, four-tops, two umbrellas, more strolling, much staring.
- All menus speak Italian, but the real language is gesture. Waiting lists of the weary on the sidewalk’s double-width lean on cement benches, pizza box aloft, admire hues of remaining views, scoop gelato.
- By Sue Greenberg, Dec. 24, 2003
Condos Invade Little Italy
- Ten years ago, construction was completed on the Rob Quigley-designed La Pensione Hotel, which sits at the intersection of India and Date Streets in Little Italy. The four-story hotel, recalls Quigley, was "by far the largest structure in the neighborhood at that time," and so its design presented a number of problems for the architect, who believes that buildings should have some connection to the particular character of an area, a character that is partly determined by its architectural history.
- By Matthew Lickona, Nov. 8, 2001
"The idea of La Pensione was, number one, to respect the past."
India Street and Beyond
- Bruschi made numerous investments: mines in Baja California (he went back to Italy, in 1882, to secure funding for the enterprise), a ranch in Otay Mesa, and an interest in the Hotel L’Europe on Fifth Avenue and H Street. When the Ginocchio Company opened its store, in 1876, Bruschi managed it for many years.
- By Jeff Smith, Aug. 17, 2000
Lusardi became known as the “pioneer Italian sheep king of San Diego County.” Film stars Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks bought Lusardi's land and planned their dream estate, “Rancho Zorro.”
You go in alive and you come out dead
- “Bump,” “The Bomp,” “El Bompo,” “The Bump,” “Bompy,” “The Cigar.” Nobody who knew Frank Bompensiero called him by those names. “If you were a friend or family member,” said Bompensiero’s daughter Mary Ann, “you called my father Frank or Uncle Frank. If you knew him only casually, you addressed him as Mr. Bompensiero. His mother called him figlio mio, ‘son of mine.’
- By Judith Moore, March 25, 1999
FBI surveillance photo of Jimmy Fratianno (left) and Frank Bompensiero
Frank's melancholy baby
- In San Diego, tuna had gone farther out to sea and income from fishing was down. In Little Italy, according to everyone with whom I talked, the Italians and Sicilians with Prohibition still in force made and sold even more wine than they had previously, in order to supplement their lagging income.
- By Judith Moore, Feb. 25, 1999
Bompensiero's elopement car, a LaSalle. "Jo, I know I promised you, you would be our matron of honor at our wedding, but Frank and I eloped. What a wedding night, whoo, whoo!"
Why did Frank Bompensiero come to San Diego?
- By the time Bompensiero showed up in San Diego, Little Italy had been growing for 30 years. Its population increased after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, when North Beach Italian residents escaped south. Families from Porticello bought and built and rented houses and apartments from the Embarcadero up the hill to Second, and from Date to Mission Hills.
- By Judith Moore, Feb. 18, 1999
Frank and Thelma Bomensiero lived in an apartment at 1907 Columbia owned by Thelma's family.
Here's something you might be interested in.
Little Italy – will the flavor last?
Tiny houses, condo towers, India Street, Our Lady of the Rosary, first Italians, Frank Bompensiero
Little Italy – will the flavor last?
Tiny houses, condo towers, India Street, Our Lady of the Rosary, first Italians, Frank Bompensiero
St. Anthony festival: Frank Bompensiero’s sister, mother (center, wearing black), brother-in-law, daughter, and nephews
Tiny rooms in Little Italy
- On a Little Italy plot where a Victorian house stood for more than a century, construction of tiny apartments is underway. The house, built in the 1890s at the corner of Union and Cedar, was demolished in February to make room for an eight-story micro-apartment building and a five-story multi-million dollar home. The apartments will be between 330 and 400 square feet.
- By Julie Stalmer, Nov. 28, 2018
Gone is the Victorian house that stood at Union and Cedar in Little Italy. On their way are 42 microapartments and one luxury home.
In my heart I hate it — arguments with Little Italy's density flacks
- The Little Italy I love has always been its sumptuous food and sensual people, both of which, despite the nouveau riche takeover of late, remain as present and prosperous as ever. That Little Italy is alive in Mona Lisa Italian Foods, the tang of parmesan, the toasty fume of fresh-baked sourdough, the nasal snap of balsamic vinaigrette dousing a saucer of extra-virgin olive oil.
- By Thomas Larson, Jan. 17, 2018
The smell of fish innards was the smell of money.
Big History of Little Italy
- Peter Corona has written of his old neighborhood in a 398-page book called Little Italy: The Way It Was. Photos from the 1930s and 1940s fill the last 72 pages. The book came out in January 2010. San Diego’s Italian neighborhood was “different from the other Little Italys in the United States,” he writes. The Italians here “lived in a more confined geographical area, stayed mostly within that area, and rarely associated with people who were non-Italian.” And Italians moving to San Diego from other U.S. cities did not always appreciate it.
- By Joe Deegan, May 11, 2011
The spiritual and cultural center of Little Italy, Our Lady of the Rosary Catholic Church
Census
- Friday, April 16, 2010
- Mimmo’s Italian delicatessen on India Street, Little Italy, 12:22–1:00 p.m.
- People: 87
- Men: 62
- Women: 25
- People stopping on the sidewalk to read menu sign: 8
- Toolbelted handyman working in the restaurant: 1
- Men in jeans: 24
- Men wearing ties: 4
- Women in jeans: 19
- By Ernie Grimm, July 7, 2010
Little Italy
Little Italy
- India at Date & Fir
- Saturday afternoon
- Tourists gamble on the best bet: lines at Filippi’s shout family; couples next door say “Table for two”; across the street, four-tops, two umbrellas, more strolling, much staring.
- All menus speak Italian, but the real language is gesture. Waiting lists of the weary on the sidewalk’s double-width lean on cement benches, pizza box aloft, admire hues of remaining views, scoop gelato.
- By Sue Greenberg, Dec. 24, 2003
Condos Invade Little Italy
- Ten years ago, construction was completed on the Rob Quigley-designed La Pensione Hotel, which sits at the intersection of India and Date Streets in Little Italy. The four-story hotel, recalls Quigley, was "by far the largest structure in the neighborhood at that time," and so its design presented a number of problems for the architect, who believes that buildings should have some connection to the particular character of an area, a character that is partly determined by its architectural history.
- By Matthew Lickona, Nov. 8, 2001
"The idea of La Pensione was, number one, to respect the past."
India Street and Beyond
- Bruschi made numerous investments: mines in Baja California (he went back to Italy, in 1882, to secure funding for the enterprise), a ranch in Otay Mesa, and an interest in the Hotel L’Europe on Fifth Avenue and H Street. When the Ginocchio Company opened its store, in 1876, Bruschi managed it for many years.
- By Jeff Smith, Aug. 17, 2000
Lusardi became known as the “pioneer Italian sheep king of San Diego County.” Film stars Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks bought Lusardi's land and planned their dream estate, “Rancho Zorro.”
You go in alive and you come out dead
- “Bump,” “The Bomp,” “El Bompo,” “The Bump,” “Bompy,” “The Cigar.” Nobody who knew Frank Bompensiero called him by those names. “If you were a friend or family member,” said Bompensiero’s daughter Mary Ann, “you called my father Frank or Uncle Frank. If you knew him only casually, you addressed him as Mr. Bompensiero. His mother called him figlio mio, ‘son of mine.’
- By Judith Moore, March 25, 1999
FBI surveillance photo of Jimmy Fratianno (left) and Frank Bompensiero
Frank's melancholy baby
- In San Diego, tuna had gone farther out to sea and income from fishing was down. In Little Italy, according to everyone with whom I talked, the Italians and Sicilians with Prohibition still in force made and sold even more wine than they had previously, in order to supplement their lagging income.
- By Judith Moore, Feb. 25, 1999
Bompensiero's elopement car, a LaSalle. "Jo, I know I promised you, you would be our matron of honor at our wedding, but Frank and I eloped. What a wedding night, whoo, whoo!"
Why did Frank Bompensiero come to San Diego?
- By the time Bompensiero showed up in San Diego, Little Italy had been growing for 30 years. Its population increased after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, when North Beach Italian residents escaped south. Families from Porticello bought and built and rented houses and apartments from the Embarcadero up the hill to Second, and from Date to Mission Hills.
- By Judith Moore, Feb. 18, 1999
Frank and Thelma Bomensiero lived in an apartment at 1907 Columbia owned by Thelma's family.