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LITTLE ITALY, Manhattan (WABC) -- An investigation is underway after an exterior wall partially collapsed from a building in Manhattan Wednesday afternoon.

The building was once home to the iconic Alleva Dairy that was open for 130 before it closed in March 2023.

"Like most people, I was shocked to learn about the collapse of the second floor at 188 Grand Street, the former home of my beloved Alleva Dairy, the oldest cheese shop in America," said Karen King, owner of Alleva Dairy. "Typically, on any given day there would have been dozens of people in the store buying fresh mozzarella and cannolis. Thank God, no one was hurt, and everyone is safe."

Citizen video captured bricks falling from the wall of the building at 188 Grand St. in Little Italy.

Firefighters responded to the scene around 3 p.m.

According to a preliminary report from the Department of Buildings, inspectors found that unpermitted gut renovation work was underway in the four-story commercial building's first floor, including the removal of all existing wooden floor joists.

Inspectors found that the masonry chimney had given way, with chimney and facade bricks landing between the building and the surrounding construction fence outside the building.

They say the fence partially fell over due to the impact from the bricks.

No injuries were reported.

Con Edison has shut off gas to the building, and Mulberry Street is currently closed due to the incident.

The investigation is ongoing.

ALSO READ | Retaining wall collapses behind auto body shop in Brooklyn

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A February 2018 feature story in the New York Times described Little Italy as having “shrunk to a name on a street map and at most-a three-block stretch of red-sauce joints on Mulberry Street patronized almost entirely by tourists.” While Chinatown expanded its borders, Little Itay kept diminishing.

But don’t tell that to John Delutro, the owner of the dessert shop Caffe Palermo on Mulberry Street in the heart of Little Italy. He opened it in 1973 with an investment he vows of $50 when he was 17-years-old and served at the outset as its barista, server and dishwasher. And now 50 years later, he’s doing his best to keep Little Italy alive and well.

In fact, he’s officially opened his second Caffe Palermo, next door to the original, in late September, which specializes in pizza. And in November 2022, he debuted a new pasta eatery across the street, The Pasta Boss, recruiting a chef from Naples, Italy, so he owns three different eateries, all on Mulberry Street.

A long-term owner of a 50-year-old dessert shop Caffe Palermo in Little Italy has opened a pizza restaurant and pasta eatery, all on Mulberry Street, dedicated to keeping the street alive and well.

Delutro’s Nickname: Baby John the Cannoli King

And Delutro is one of those quintessential New York City characters, who has verve and pizzazz. His nickname is Baby John the Cannoli King. When NY1 News did a recent segment on the Feast of San Gennaro, the open-air food festival that takes place annually in Little Italy in mid-September, NY1 News reporter Roger Clark led by interviewing John Delutro.

Why is it so critical for Delutro to keep Little Italy humming along? He says he was born and raised there, and back then, “We slept on fire escapes, never locked our doors, and knew everyone in the building. Little Italy used to stretch to the Bowery but not anymore.”

His grandparents moved from Italy to Mulberry Street so it has a special place in his heart. “It’s like family,” he declared.

His original Caffe Palermo, Delutro explained, specializes in “Italian desserts, coffee and my signature, Mulberry Street wine.” In fact, he serves a variety of coffee blends, stretching from Colombia to Ethiopia.

While most restaurateurs these days tap angel investors or private equity money to expand, or at the least, take out an SBA loan, Delutro financed his new eateries with money saved.

With his new Caffe Palermo, the pizza joint, he’s more than doubling his clientele. The original Caffe Palermo seats 65 people inside while the new one accommodates 45 inside and 100 outside.

The New Caffe Palermo Offers More Than Desserts

And the new Caffe Palermo goes beyond desserts; it offers margarita pizza, vegan pizza, as well as classic pepperoni pizza. It will serve lunch, dinner, and, also offer Italian desserts.

Or as Delutro described it, a guest can have pizza for dinner at one Caffe Palermo and walk next door to the other for dessert, a double-header.

And why bring over a chef from Naples to cook at Pasta Boss? “When you open a Chinese restaurant, you hire a Chinese chef, when you open a Mexican restaurant, you hire a Mexican chef,” he replied.

Asked about his favorite dishes, he replied “the lasagna will knock you out and meatballs are terrific.”

One Thing About Little Italy Delutro Doesn’t Like

But there’s one thing about what goes at many eateries in Little Italy that Delutro doesn’t like. He calls it “hawking,” where a host stops you on the street, and shoves a menu into a pedestrian’s hands trying to lure them into their restaurant. “We never do any hawking,” he declared.

To promote his new eateries, he’s launching an advertising campaign at Kennedy Airport and Newark Airports, putting up posters of his restaurants, to lure tourists in. He answers every Instagram comment on Caffe Palermo’s account to encourage word-of-mouth.

What lures people to his dessert shop, pizza place and Italian restaurant? With no lack of self-restraint, Delutro said, “My being there. I greet every single customer, invite them in with open arms, whether they come from Austria, Australia, or Cuba. Welcome to my home,” he tells them.

The former showman P.T. Barnum, who founded Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus, could learn something about promotion from Delutro, the restaurateur dedicated to keeping Little Italy thriving.

ThisThis year marks the 97th anniversary of the Feast of San Gennaro in New York City’s Little Italy, one of the few remaining saint’s festivals in the city. Many were initiated by Italian immigrants who came from small towns in southern Italy, where the patron saint’s festival were often the most anticipated holidays of the year.

This festival commemorates San Gennaro, the Bishop of Benevento, Italy, who was martyred in 305 A.D. by the Romans. His blood was collected and preserved in Naples, where it allegedly liquifies every year on September 19, hence the timing of our own festival. Gennaro is considered the patron saint of Naples.

I went Thursday, the first day of a festival that extends through Sunday, September 24, from roughly noon to midnight. I spent the day grazing up and down the blocks where the festival occurs, from Canal to Houston on Mulberry Street, extending east and west on many side streets.

Consider your choices carefully, because much of the food is relatively expensive and not very good. Read on for the five best things I ate, paying special attention to the traditional festival food of Naples — as well as advice on how to navigate this especially crowded festival.

Braciola consists of a pounded pork cutlet wrapped around Parmesan, bread crumbs, and herbs. Most versions at the festival are lackluster, but Johnny Fasullo’s is my pick, in part because it’s grilled over charcoal. Piled in a bun with sauteed onions and peppers, it is the best thing at San Gennaro. Don’t forget to ask for a grilled green chile, which they’ll add for no extra charge. If you’d rather have a sausage and peppers hero instead, this is the place to get it. Corner of Grand and Mulberry, $15

Zeppole are perhaps the best-loved San Gennaro fare, descended from fried strips of dough covered in powdered sugar at the Naples Carnival known as chiacchiere. These amorphous blobs of dough are fried to a golden brown in vast tubs of oil, finished with a blizzard of sugar shaken over the top. It’s also one of the most inexpensive treats at the fare. 167 Mulberry between Grand and Broome, $5 for six

The are a half dozen stalls along the seven blocks of Mulberry Street attributed to Lucy Spata, who started out in 1971 selling zeppole, sausages, and other southern Italian and Sicilian fare. One of the best things to get is her humongous arancini: rice balls, stuffed with ground meat and cheese and deep fried. Make sure you ask for sauce, which is an essential part of the picture. At 131 Mulberry between Hester and Grand, $10

Ferrara Bakery and Pastry is the anchor of Little Italy, open since 1892, and its stalls can be found up and down Mulberry, and in front of the rather grand looking store at 195 Grand Street at Mulberry Street. Confusingly referred to in Naples as a zeppole di San Giuseppe, the St. Joseph’s pastry is redolent of the Italian past and its reverence for saints. A choux pastry is filled with fluffy pastry cream and topped with either a maraschino cherry or chocolate chips — you choose! 170 Mulberry Street between Grand and Broome, $10

Umbertos — site of a famous mob hit — maintains a stall at the fare specializing in raw clams and fried clams, but why not sit in the sidewalk area established for that purpose right on Mulberry Street? There you can enjoy a serving of baked clams made from local littlenecks, served with bread and olive oil so garlicky it will make your tongue burn. Drizzle a little of it over each clam before you eat it. 132 Mulberry Street between Hester and Grand, $18

Here’s a little advice for attending San Gennaro, gleaned after 30 years of going to the festival and eating its street fare.

Out & About covers the events where notable, powerful and influential figures gather. Plus the outfits. This week: a reunion for the “Sopranos” cast and a gathering for the podcast “Nota Bene.”

A Family Dinner on Mulberry Street

On Wednesday night, in Little Italy, cast and crew members of “The Sopranos,” which premiered 25 years ago this week, gathered for dinner at Da Nico, an old red sauce restaurant on Mulberry Street. The celebratory feast was held alongside an anniversary nostalgia tour for the show, with fan events and special screenings.

“It’s like heaven. It’s extraordinary being with these people,” David Chase, the creator and executive producer of the series, said as guests mobbed the bar around him. He added that he hadn’t seen many of them in years.

Some 75 people packed into Da Nico, a family-owned restaurant that opened in 1993, where “Sopranos” stars Michael Imperioli and Steve Schirripa are cherished regulars.

Bartenders poured “Sopranos”-labeled Chianti, waiters offered baby-caprese appetizers, and figures like Steven Van Zandt, who played Silvio Dante, and Steve Buscemi, who worked as an actor and director on the series, wove through the crowd. (Some of the show’s most recognizable faces did not make it.)

“I wanted to make sure I was here because I don’t know if this is going to be the last reunion,” said Mr. Schirripa, who played Bobby Baccalieri on the series.

The evening also felt bittersweet, he said, following the recent deaths of castmates like Frank Vincent and Tony Sirico.

Lorraine Bracco, who played Tony Soprano’s psychiatrist, Dr. Jennifer Melfi, said that she looked back fondly on the years she spent with the crowd in the room. “I shared a big part of my life. They watched my children grow up and graduate and have children and get married and so it continues to be a very large, looming family.”

Matthew Weiner, the creator of “Mad Men,” who worked on “The Sopranos” for several years, said that he still sees Mr. Chase in Los Angeles.

Mr. Chase’s writing advice stuck with him: “David would always say, ‘if we like it, they’ll like it. If we understand, they’ll understand it. We are the audience.’”

After cocktail hour, the group moved to a private room upstairs, for dishes like Carmela’s Baked Ziti and Satriale’s Special Calabrese. For the next few weeks, these menu items and others inspired by the series will be available at Da Nico, which will also have a special Sopranos-themed red dinner booth.

James Gandolfini, who starred in the series as Tony Soprano, died in 2013. But at the gathering, Mr. Gandolfini’s son, Michael, who played a younger version of Tony in “The Many Saints of Newark,” hung out by a wall stacked with wine bottles, eagerly introducing people to his girlfriend. One of his father’s old cast mates approached and asked, “How’s your Mama?”

As Mr. Gandolfini took in the scene, watching former crew members hug each other and plant cheek kisses, he grew reflective.

“I’m here not only as a fan of the show,” said Mr. Gandolfini. “But to honor all the cast members and what they have done.”

Art dealers, painters and critics mingled on Monday night at the opening of a group show, “Friends of the Pod,” at Broadway Gallery in TriBeCa. The exhibition’s name nodded to the podcast that organized the event: “Nota Bene,” a weekly talk show hosted by two art world insiders, Nate Freeman and Benjamin Godsill, who discuss the industry’s news and gossip with the kind of breathlessness that might befit Siskel and Ebert — if they’d hung out downtown.

“Friends of the Pod,” which runs until Feb. 3, features the works of artists who have appeared as guests on “Nota Bene” or who have been discussed regularly on the podcast, with pieces provided by art stars like Rashid Johnson, Sterling Ruby and Jonas Wood. Mr. Freeman is a culture correspondent at Vanity Fair and Mr. Godsill is a prominent art adviser.

“We’re true insiders, Nate as a journalist and me as an adviser,” Mr. Godsill said. “Our listenership ranges from heads of the biggest art fairs to the owners of small galleries on the Lower East Side.”

“There’s lots of obfuscation in the art world, and we’re trying to bring transparency to it,” Mr. Freeman said. “We’re here to tell you what’s really happening behind the scenes.”

Hanging out near his own painting, the artist Andrew Kuo sipped a tall boy of Carlsberg. And the critic Dean Kissick considered a painting of oysters by Hilary Pecis and a sculpture by Tony Matelli of a Roman-style bust covered with celery sticks and an eggplant.

“That food appears in these works, in a way, mirrors what ‘Nota Bene’ is about, because a big part of the podcast is talking about going to dinner,” Mr. Kissick said. “That’s because a big part of the art world is about going to dinner. Dinner is how the art world works.”

Admiring a piece by the painter and sculptor Sam Moyer was Bridget Finn, the director of Art Basel Miami Beach. “I was just listening to a new ‘Nota Bene’ episode on my way here,” Ms. Finn said. “They always get the inside scoop.”

Attendees soon walked through the cold to a nearby after-party at a dimly lit bar in Chinatown, the River. Trays of pickled cauliflower, beets and green beans were offered to guests like Rachel Tashjian, a fashion writer for The Washington Post, and Noah Horowitz, the chief executive of Art Basel. Gutes Guterman, the co-editor of the web publication Byline and a founder of The Drunken Canal, sipped an old-fashioned and wore a sequined scarf.

Clad in a dark suit, Max Hollein, the director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, maneuvered through the crowd to reach the bar. “I listen to the show from time to time,” he said. “It’s two buddies talking. I find it quite fun and relaxing.”

As midnight approached, the scene embodied the podcast’s subject matter: gallerists and artists sat in dark corners of the room drinking tongue-loosening martinis while they talked business and traded gossip. Mr. Freeman and Mr. Godsill were busy chatting with their fans, but they weren’t off the clock, keeping a close ear to the whispers around them.

NEW YORK -- The Department of Buildings says there was renovation work being done without a permit at a Little Italy building that partially collapsed Wednesday afternoon.

Surveillance video shows the wall fall, knocking over part of a construction fence as people start running. The FDNY says no one was hurt, but it certainly startled people in the area.

"I heard the boom, the building collapse," said Marjorie Carrillo, who works nearby. "I was scared, all the people here was scared in La Bella Vita, in this restaurant. I didn't know what to do, so we were scared, you know. It's New York, it's Little Italy, and the building's gonna collapse."

The building at Grand and Mulberry is where Alleva Dairy once stood, known as one of the oldest cheese shops in the country until it closed that location in March of last year.

The city describes it as a four-story commercial building.

People in the neighborhood say the collapse only adds to their concerns about the city's aging buildings after another partial building collapse in the Bronx last month and a deadly parking garage collapse on Ann Street last spring.

The DOB now says when they arrived at the building Wednesday, they discovered there was renovation work underway on the first floor, being done without the proper permits, including the removal all wooden floor joists.

The city is still investigating.

Tim McNicholas

Tim McNicholas is a reporter for CBS New York. He joined the team in September 2022 after working in Chicago, Indianapolis, Toledo and Hastings, Nebraska.

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