27 East 187th Street
1915-17
Anthony F.A. Schmitt

This beautifully preserved Romanesque Revival church, built for a parish founded in 1906, is the spiritual heart of the Belmont community. The twin-towered church has a triple portal, a great wheel window, and superb brickwork. Italian Catholic congregations typically built their churches in either Romanesque or classical styles, as opposed to Gothic, which they associated with Irish churches where Italian immigrants often found a frosty welcome.

The architect of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, Anthony F.A. Schmitt, was a Roman Catholic architect with such credits as Holy Redeemer College (1934) in Washington, D.C., the Church of St. Pius V (1906-07) in Mott Haven, and Immaculate Conception School (1901) on Melrose Avenue and 151st Street.

The name “Our Lady of Mount Carmel”–shared by well-known churches in East Harlem and in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, as well as by the great shrine in Rosebank, Staten Island– refers to the 13th-century appearance of the Blessed Virgin Mary to St. Simon Stock in Cambridge, England. She bestowed upon him the scapular (a devotional artifact in the form of a cloth pendant) of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. In the Old Testament, Elijah lived in a grotto in Mount Carmel in present-day Israel. In the 12th century, the Carmelite Order was founded there.

This block of 187th Street is one of the finest in Belmont. The sidewalks are wide on both sides of the street, the tenement buildings with stores in their bases are beautifully scaled to the street, there are plenty of street trees, and the church lends its special excitement. When one imagines a young Dion DiMucci singing a cappella on the corner near the church, a whole slice of New York’s rich ethnic past comes vibrantly to mind.

Photo by Hugo L. Gonzalez

2321 Hughes Avenue

This new restaurant (pronounced SHA ka chell-OO), which received an enthusiastic review from Pete Wells in The New York Times in 2019, is a rare Albanian restaurant that serves authentic Albanian cuisine, as opposed to Italian cuisine, and reminds us of the significant presence in Belmont of Albanian immigrants. Photo courtesy of Bronx Little Italy.

603 Crescent Avenue

Roberto Paciullo, from Salerno, in Campania in southwestern Italy, opened his eponymous restaurant a few doors from here in 1989, moving to the present location in 2004. Highly recommended by the Michelin Guide, which describes Roberto’s as a “storied Italian-American favorite whose design falls somewhere between a cozy farmhouse and Mediterranean villa.”

Photo courtesy of Bronx Little Italy.

2342 Arthur Avenue

Mario’s opened in 1919. It received a rave review from Craig Claiborne in The New York Times in 1976, and is known to have served Nelson Rockefeller, Elizabeth Taylor and Eddie Fisher, the renowned soprano Anna Moffo, and Clint Eastwood. The restaurant’s renown extended to its mention in Mario Puzo’s novel The Godfather (1969), though the restaurant’s owners, the Migliucci family, declined a request to have the restaurant appear in the film version. In 2018, John Mariani, the authority on Italian-American food, wrote in Forbes that Mario’s “sets a civilized example for anyone who wants to know what the Italian- American restaurant should be.”

Photo courtesy of Bronx Little Italy.

2348 Arthur Avenue

One of the most popular stories one hears on Arthur Avenue is that of how in 1924 the wife of Mario Madonia, the Palermo-born founder of the then six-year-old bakery, still in its original location on nearby Adams Place, gave birth to her youngest son right in the bakery when a car crashed through the front window, sending her into premature labor. The child, Peter Madonia Sr., was incubated in a shoebox placed next to the oven. The bakery is now run by partners Peter Jr. and Charlie La Lima. In 2018, Peter Jr. returned to the family business after a distinguished career as Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s chief of staff and as chief operating officer of the Rockefeller Foundation. In fact, Peter Madonia had once before left public service to steward the bakery. In 1988, his brother Mario, who had run the bakery,died in a car accident, and Peter, who had served in the Koch administration in City Hall, and then as deputy commissioner of buildings and as deputy commissioner of the Fire Department, returned to the bakery in an emergency capacity. In what seems almost like the plot of a Hallmark movie, he now appears to be back for good. Photo courtesy of Bronx Little Italy.

2372 Arthur Avenue

Teitel Brothers was founded in 1915. In a wonderful example of New York’s immigrant synergies, this famous Italian specialty food store was started by an Austrian Jewish family. According to family lore, one of the founding brothers, Jacob Teitel, was a Yiddish speaker who learned to speak Italian before English. There is an inlaid Star of David in the entranceway, installed during the Depression as a show of resistance against the rising tide of facism and anti-Semitism in Europe.

2374 Arthur Avenue

Vincent’s Meat Market was founded in 1954 and has been in its present location since 1981. It is family owned and operated, and provides high quality, fresh meat and poultry sourced from reputable farms. It appears as the butcher shop where Marty Piletti works in the film Marty. Filmed almost in a documentary style, Marty is one of the most evocative of all New York City films. Written by Paddy Chayefsky and directed by Delbert Mann, Marty won the 1955 Academy Award for Best Picture, as well as the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival. Ernest Borgnine, who starred in the title role, won the Academy Award for Best Actor. The film tells the story of a lonely, middle-aged butcher who lives in Belmont. At the time, the meat market was called Oteri’s Butcher Shop, and in the film, Marty refers to his boss as Mr. Oteri. Marty opens memorably with a shot of the Arthur Avenue Retail Market.