It's Curious City, where we take your questions about Chicago and the region, and investigate, report, explore, from WBEZ.

Hi, I'm WBEZ reporter Monica Eng. Today, we're going back into the archives to bring you a story we first did in 2015.

It's about one of Chicago's oldest ethnic neighborhoods, Little Italy.

And there are a few things you need to know before we get to the story.

First, Chicago's had many Italian neighborhoods.

But the biggest and the one actually called Little Italy is southwest of the loop around Taylor Street.

But when tourists actually get to it, well, they're pretty confused.

Here's author Kathy Catrambone.

They see on the map the words Little Italy, and they come here and they look around and they'll ask you, where is Little Italy?

They'll go into the beauty shop and ask, where is Little Italy?

And she'll say, you're standing in the middle of it.

That's because today, Little Italy has just a handful of Italian joints, but loads of Asian restaurants,

cupcake shops, and national pizza and sub-chains.

Another thing, in the 50s, little Italy was big, vibrant, and really Italian, as in Italian

parishes, and even Italian spoken on the street.

It had everything. It had bakeries on side streets. There were many butchers and fruit stands and little grocery stores.

So, you know, there weren't the big jewels and those kinds of stores here, but you didn't need them.

Last thing you need to know is that the University of Illinois in Chicago now occupies many of the blocks where those Italian businesses

and homes once stood. This is where a questioner Ronnie DeMay comes in. His great grandparents

settled around Taylor Street nearly a century ago. But Ronnie, he grew up on the north side,

so he's bummed that today this once vibrant little Italy is nearly gone. People generally don't like just being American.

They want to be something else.

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