History and culture come together at the New Italian American Museum in Manhattan

Walking down Mulberry Street in New York City's Little Italy neighborhood can often feel like a contact sport. Locals push past tourists, pedestrians duck around outdoor dining tables, and souvenir shops almost ambush you with shelves full of kitschy souvenirs. Heaven help you during the annual San Gennaro Festival.

However, when you reach the intersection of Mulberry Street and Grand Street, you encounter the Grand Mulberry, a seven-story residential building designed by Morris Adjmi Architects that features a distinctive façade of custom-shaped domed bricks. On the Mulberry side of the building, set back from the sidewalk, is a triangle that shelters from the hustle and bustle of the neighborhood and serves as a threshold to the new Italian American Museum.

In October, the 24-year-old institution opened its space at Grand Mulberry, designed by op.Architecture + Landscape (op.AL). At 6,500 square meters and four levels, two of which are underground, it is unique in Little Italy and an undeniable upgrade from the museum's previous digs. From 2006 to 2017, the museum was a mainstay of Little Italy, but its improvisational nature gave it a shabby, somewhat transient feel. It was located in a former bank and barbershop on the ground floor of two adjacent buildings on the site of what is now Grand Mulberry. When they were demolished for this renovation, the leadership had the opportunity to build a more spacious, permanent home.

“We approached the project from the perspective of bringing the museum to a place of modernity,” says Jonathan A. Scelsa, founding partner of Brooklyn-based op.AL. “We wanted to give them a very clean and modern backdrop where the art and historical artifacts can speak for themselves.”

The two basement floors feature permanent exhibits on Italian-American history from the 19th to the 21st centuries, with a flexible 48-seat auditorium on the second basement floor. (These galleries will not be fully installed and open to the public until June 2025.) The museum's ground floor serves as a reception area and atrium, with a long wall that can be used as an exhibition space and an open staircase leading to the one above The gallery with special exhibitions is currently open to the public. These spaces are connected by a conical light well that emphasizes the verticality of the museum while bringing natural and artificial light into the underground galleries.

But the show begins on the sidewalk. The first encounter with the museum is a double-height, perforated steel-clad storefront that slopes inward from the street, providing an elegant contrast to Adjmi's equally distinct red brick facade. A large arched window to the left of the entrance faces the intersection of Mulberry and Grand, offering visitors and passersby the opportunity to interact with and view the historic heart of Little Italy before and after entering the museum. This approach, present in the earliest stages of design, was all about creating a sense of arrival, and according to Scelsa, it was enthusiastically embraced by Adjmi and the institution.

“The museum team wanted to make a statement and were excited about maintaining the neighborhood's proximity to the neighborhood while ensuring the project gave it presence, both externally to attract attention and by celebrating the spatial experience as much as that Work of art,” says Scelsa. “I think it’s also a stewardship where the museum is giving space back to the public, in a sense.”

Although the programming won't be fully available online until the spring, the new space has already achieved some of what the museum's leadership – and the architect – had hoped for. The people hurrying along Mulberry slow down and stare, taking a step or two from the sidewalk into the triangle that forms the facade, looking at the unexpected gray steel jutting out from the larger building's grained masonry; in the arched window a plaster statue of a seated seamstress holding an invisible thread; the white atrium wall and the red reception area directly behind the entrance doors. Some come in, ask what this place is and decide to return when everything is installed; Some stay to see the small army of historic four-foot-tall Sicilian puppets created by the Manteo family, on display in the upstairs gallery.

Or you can simply stand under the museum's canopy, breathe deeply, and take in the experience of Little Italy – and enjoy a moment of peace amidst the neighborhood's lively carnival atmosphere.