East Harlem became a vibrant Italian immigrant community after management used Italian workers to break the Irish worker’s strike on the Fifth Avenue trolley line.  It was quickly settled by the Italian workers and their families soon followed.  Most of the workers came from Southern Italy and were unskilled and uneducated.  The neighborhood became another “Little Italy,” as Italian businesses accompanied the Italian residents.  Jews also settled in East Harlem, though to a lesser degree than the Italians.  Synagogues and Jewish prayer groups were established in the community begin to disappear with the Puerto Rican migration of the 1920s and 1930s.

From its inception, East Harlem has been a working class neighborhood with poor housing.  There has always been insufficient housing for the population of the community and the quality of the housing was far inferior to that of neighboring central Harlem. 

Morrone's Bakery is a remnant of Italian Harlem.