The neighborhood was long regarded as part of Little Italy, but has lost its recognizable Italian character in recent decades because of rapidly rising rents. The Feast of San Gennaro, dedicated to Saint Januarius (“Pope of Naples”), is held in the neighborhood every year following Labor Day, on Mulberry Street between Houston and Grand Streets. The feast, as recreated on Elizabeth Street between Prince and Houston Streets, was featured in the film The Godfather Part II.
In the second half of the 1990s, the neighborhood saw an influx of yuppies and an explosion of expensive retail boutiques and restaurants and bars. After unsuccessful tries to pitch it as part of SoHo, real estate promoters and others came up with several different names for consideration for this newly upscale neighborhood. The name that stuck, as documented in an article on May 5, 1996, in the New York Times city section debating various monikers for the newly trendy area, was Nolita, an abbreviation for North of Little Italy. This name follows the pattern started by SoHo (South of Houston Street) and TriBeCa (Triangle Below Canal Street).
The neighborhood includes St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral, at the intersection of Mulberry, Mott, and Prince Streets, which opened in 1815 and was rebuilt in 1868 after a fire. The cornerstone was laid on June 8, 1809. This building served as New York City’s Roman Catholic cathedral until the new St. Patrick’s Cathedral was opened on Fifth Avenue in Midtown in 1879. St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral is now a parish church. In 2010, St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral was honored and became The Basilica at St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral.
The Puck Building, a nine-story-high ornate structure built in 1885 on the corner of Houston and Lafayette Streets, originally housed the headquarters of the now-defunct Puck Magazine.
