240 Mulberry

One of the places where I am currently working is located at 240 Mulberry Street. It's now zoned in an area called Nolita (North of Little Italy). Mulberry Street, along with some of the nearby streets such as Christopher and Elizabeth, are historically so important in the history of Italian immigration into the states. These days so little of Little Italy remains and sadly it's more a sideshow than possesing the colour and flavour it once did. My workplace has a downstairs bar and then a bar/restaurant on street level, which goes back to a 'beer' garden. Yesterday I saw a photograph which had to be at least 100 years old. It was of an old Italian man standing at the front of the shop with his daughter beside him. Hanging from the front window were curing hams. The photograph was one that provoked the imagination to consider the numerous stories that must have evolved within the walls of this establishment as it has changed one business enterprise to another over the decades. Downstairs, built into the wall is an old brick bread oven. It's almost as deep, fourteen feet, as it is wide and like the photograph, is a beautiful remnant of days gone by. Talking with the owner yesterday he mentioned that bread was not been the only thing to have been baked in the oven. Across the street a notorious family once ran this neighbourhood in their 'traditional' way. When someone made trouble for them, the oven in the basement of 240 Mulberry was lit and the individual met a fiery finish. Sour dough anyone?