The Banca Stabile was established in 1885 on the corner of 189 Grand Street and 155 Mulberry Street in

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

Little Italy Little Italy is a general name for an ethnic enclave populated primarily by Italians or people of Italian ancestry, usually in an urban neighborhood. The concept of "Little Italy" holds many different aspects of the Italian culture. There are ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

, by Francesco Rosario Stabile. As of October 2008 the building became the home of the Italian American Museum (IAM).A March Uptown and a Shrine Downtown for Italian Heritage
The New York Times, October 13, 2008

History

The bank was founded by Francesco Rosario Stabile (1845-1920)
The New York Times, June 16, 1920 who arrived in New York City in 1865 from the

province of Salerno The Province of Salerno ( it, Provincia di Salerno) is a province in the Campania region of Italy. __TOC__ Geography The largest towns in the province are: Salerno, the capital, which has a population of 131,950; Cava de' Tirreni, Battipagli ...

in Italy. At the time, he was a 20-years-old veteran of the Italian unification struggles. In the 1870s he founded a bank in a shop at 74 Mulberry Street, in the burgeoning Italian immigrant community, and in 1885 moved to a larger building on the corner of Grand and Mulberry streets. The Banca Stabile was one of the many Italian immigrant banks in Mulberry Street, that was also known as the Italian Wall Street, that proliferated before stricter banking regulations were introduced. The bank offered the Italian immigrants more than just financial services. Many immigrants preferred to do their banking with people who spoke their language. The bank was one of the many small banks available to Italian immigrants around Little Italy and was a link with their relatives in Italy. In addition to a full range of banking services, it also provided the many other services, such as a telegraph and post office, passenger ship ticketing, import-export services, translation and public notary; in short the enterprise in fact acted as an all-in-one Italian immigrant service center. The Stabile brothers, Francesco Rosario and Gabriele Stabile, also opened a branch in

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

on North Square in the North End, the city's Italian quarter. With the emancipation of second- and third-generation of Italian Americans the bank started to lose its function for the community. When the banking crisis of the Great Depression got worse in 1932 the New York State government closed the bank. In 1933 the bank merged with

Banca Commerciale Italiana Trust Co. Banca Commerciale Italiana (BCI) established Banca Commerciale Italiana Trust Co. of New York (BCITNY) in 1924 and closed it in 1939, in the run-up to World War II. In 1917 Lodovico Toeplitz, chief of the Foreign Department of BCI, visited New Yo ...

Changes In State Banking; Banca Stabile Is Being Liquidated, Charter Revoked
The New York Times, February 11, 1933

Italian American Museum

The Stabile family continued with a passenger ship ticketing agency until 1965, and used the building on the corner of Grand and Mulberry streets to run its real estate business.
The New York Times, September 8, 2008 The family kept the characteristic interior intact,
The New York Times, November 23, 1997 including its vault, tin ceiling, marble floor and counters, bronze grilles, and teller cages intact. The family sold the building to the Italian American Museum in June 2008 for more than $9 million.

References

Sources

* * * *{{cite book, last1=Price, first1=Michael, last2=Sammarco, first2= Anthony Mitchell, title=Boston's Immigrants 1840-1925, url= https://books.google.com/books?id=ga0W2ZL0KcsC, publisher=Arcadia Publishing, year=2000, location=Charleston NC, isbn=978-0-7385-5675-8 Defunct banks of New York City 1885 establishments in New York (state) Banks based in New York City Bank buildings in Manhattan History of Manhattan East Harlem Italian-American history