Here in Boston's oldest residential neighborhood, layers of immigrant history have settled into brick and dialect alike. The North End was the heart of colonial Boston, home to the wharves, the counting houses, and the residences of the merchant class — and of Paul Revere, whose house still stands on North Square. As the nineteenth century progressed, successive waves of immigrants moved into the dense brick row houses: first Irish, then Eastern European Jews, and finally Italians, who arrived in enormous numbers from southern Italy and Sicily between 1880 and 1920.
The Italian community that settled here created what became one of the most tightly knit urban neighborhoods in America. Families from the same villages in Abruzzo or Sicily settled the same streets, maintained their dialects, established their saints' festivals, and for decades produced the cannoli, the arancini, and the Sunday gravy that made Hanover Street one of the great eating streets in New England. The community is smaller now, dispersed to the suburbs over three generations, but the restaurants remain and the feasts of the saints — the Fisherman's Feast, the Madonna della Cava — still bring the North End Italians home in August.
Walk Hanover Street on any evening and look at the tables on the sidewalk; the food is genuine.