How COVID-19 Has Changed Little Italy Neighborhoods Across the US
Peter Madonia is the third-generation owner of the more than 100-year-old Madonia Bakery on Arthur Avenue in the Bronx’s Little Italy. His family has seen a lot in the decades that they’ve lived and worked in the Bronx: Madonia’s grandfather opened the bakery in 1918 in the middle of the Spanish flu. The ensuing years brought on the Great Depression, World War II, and riots and unrest in the 1950s and ‘60s. But nothing has hit the neighborhood quite like the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.