Pleasant Avenue is a north-south street in the

East Harlem East Harlem, also known as Spanish Harlem or and historically known as Italian Harlem, is a neighborhood of Upper Manhattan, New York City, roughly encompassing the area north of the Upper East Side and bounded by 96th Street to the south, F ...

neighborhood of the

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

borough A borough is an administrative division in various English-speaking countries. In principle, the term ''borough'' designates a self-governing walled town, although in practice, official use of the term varies widely. History In the Middle Ag ...

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 ...

. It begins at E. 114th Street and ends at E. 120th Street. The street was the northernmost section of Avenue A, which stretched from

Alphabet City Alphabet City is a neighborhood located within the East Village in the New York City borough of Manhattan. Its name comes from Avenues A, B, C, and D, the only avenues in Manhattan to have single-letter names. It is bounded by Houston St ...

northward, and was added to the grid wherever space allowed between First Avenue and the

East River The East River is a saltwater tidal estuary in New York City. The waterway, which is actually not a river despite its name, connects Upper New York Bay on its south end to Long Island Sound on its north end. It separates the borough of Queens ...

. This stretch was renamed "Pleasant Avenue" in 1879. Unlike

York Avenue York Avenue and Sutton Place are the names of a relatively short north-south thoroughfare in the Yorkville, Manhattan, Yorkville, Lenox Hill, and Sutton Place neighborhoods of the East Side (Manhattan), East Side of Manhattan, in New York City. ...

, however, the addresses on Pleasant Avenue are not continuous with that on Avenue A (which would be in the 2000-series if they were continuous). Pleasant Avenue is one of the last remaining streets in

Italian Harlem East Harlem, also known as Spanish Harlem or and historically known as Italian Harlem, is a neighborhood of Upper Manhattan, New York City, roughly encompassing the area north of the Upper East Side and bounded by 96th Street to the south, Fi ...

, which existed in the eastern part of Harlem from the late 1890s to the 1970s. The neighborhood shrunk over the years, and the small remaining

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance language *** Regional Ita ...

population resides on Pleasant Avenue. The street is the site of one of the few remaining Italian restaurants in the area,

Rao's Rao's () is a Southern Italian restaurant founded in 1896. It is located at 455 East 114th Street, on the corner of Pleasant Avenue in East Harlem, New York City. Rao's has sister restaurants in Los Angeles and Las Vegas, Nevada. History The re ...

, at 114th Street. The street had largely lost its Italian character by 2010. Both in real life and in the movies, Pleasant Avenue has long been associated with the

Mafia "Mafia" is an informal term that is used to describe criminal organizations that bear a strong similarity to the original “Mafia”, the Sicilian Mafia and Italian Mafia. The central activity of such an organization would be the arbitration of d ...

. The street was the headquarters of

Anthony Salerno Anthony "Fat Tony" Salerno (August 15, 1911 – July 27, 1992) was an American mobster who served as underboss and front boss of the Genovese crime family in New York City from 1981 until his conviction in 1986. Early life Salerno was born and ...

, head of the

Genovese crime family The Genovese crime family, () also sometimes referred to as the Westside, is an Italian-American Mafia crime family and one of the "Five Families" that dominate organized crime activities in New York City and New Jersey as part of the American M ...

, prior to his incarceration for racketeering in 1986. It was also the founding location and turf of the Italian-American drug trafficking and murder-for-hire gang known as

East Harlem Purple Gang The East Harlem Purple Gang was a gang or organized crime group consisting of Italian-American hit-men and heroin dealers who were semi-independent from the Italian-American Mafia and, according to federal prosecutors, dominated heroin distribu ...

during the 1970s and early 1980s. The

Manhattan Center for Science and Mathematics Manhattan Center for Science and Mathematics (abbreviated as MCSM) is a public high school at East 116th Street between Pleasant Avenue and FDR Drive in East Harlem, within Upper Manhattan, New York City. The school building, which was forme ...

, formerly Benjamin Franklin High School, is located on Pleasant Avenue. In July 2010, Pleasant Avenue became the site of a

Target Target may refer to: Physical items * Shooting target, used in marksmanship training and various shooting sports ** Bullseye (target), the goal one for which one aims in many of these sports ** Aiming point, in field artillery, fi ...

store, at the East River Plaza at 517 East 117th Street. Every year on the second Sunday of August the

Giglio Society of East Harlem Giglio Society of East Harlem is a non profit Italian-American society located in East Harlem, Manhattan, New York City, that sponsors an annual feast honoring their patron saint, Anthony of Padua, Saint Anthony. History 20th century Southern I ...

performs the dancing Giglio on Pleasant Avenue. The dancing of the Giglio is an Italian tradition which began over 100 years ago.

References

Notes

External links

East Harlem Giglio Society
{{Attached KML, display=title Italian-American culture in New York City Little Italys in the United States Streets in Manhattan East Harlem