The census records for the years 1930 and 1940 for 196 Elizabeth Street residents demonstrated that many of them were Italian-born immigrants, which is a glimpse into how prominent of a contribution of Italian settlements had in the population trends of New York City. According to the 1940 Census, the population of New York City totaled 7,454,995 residents, with 2,080,020 of them recorded as foreign-born white (U.S. Census Bureau, 1943, p.156-157). Italian-born immigrants were among the largest groups in this category, with numbers reaching 440,250 in 1930 and declining to 409,489 by 1940, but representing 19.7% of the city’s foreign-born white population that year (U.S. Census Bureau, 1943, p. 159). Italian immigrants settled in an area of Lower Manhattan in the 1850s, dubbed “Little Italy,” and by the 1920s, it had become a prominent Italian community in New York City (Hodges, 2010, p. 758). Ethnic communities like Little Italy allowed Italian immigrants to find housing, work, and even led to the establishment of businesses, Roman Catholic places of worship, and heritage-based social communities (Hodges, 2010, p. 758). So, considering this, it is not surprising that the majority demographic for the residents of 196 Elizabeth Street were Italian immigrants or the children of Italian immigrants. By 1940, all 59 residents of the building were recorded as white, 25 were born in Italy, and 32 were New York-born, most with Italian-born parents. This shows a mix of first- and second-generation Italian immigrants, who were among the largest groups of foreign-born immigrants. Rather than this being an isolated trend, the building is only just one example of the broader population patterns in New York City.
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