Fra Noi Embrace Your Inner Italian
Taylor Street once again boasts an epic work of Italian-American art thanks to the Comitato Tricolore Italiani nel Mondo.
A mural welcoming visitors to Chicago’s venerable Little Italy was commissioned by CTIM, painted on the side of a building at the northeast corner of Taylor and Bishop, and unveiled at a ceremony on Oct. 17. Money was raised from the community to fund the project.
The mural faces the plaza that showcased a statue of Joe DiMaggio from 1998, when it was installed by the National Italian American Sports Hall of Fame, until 2019, when the sports hall shuttered its operation on Taylor Street.
“We started the Save Chicago’s Little Italy movement after the Columbus statue was removed from Arrigo Park,” says CTIM spokesperson Carlo Vaniglia, crediting local activist Phil Marcantelli for playing a major role in the movement. “Our goal is to revive our neighborhood one step at a time. We didn’t want to sit idly by.”
CTIM hosts the Festa della Repubblica celebration at the Shrine of Our Lady of Pompeii in June, honors Italo Balbo with a wreath-laying ceremony at the monument in downtown Chicago each July and engages in other forms of activism. (708-217-1004)
