Italian Americans on the Hill in St. Louis enjoy a community founded and influenced by their ancestors over four or five generations past. Visitors muse how a 50 square block neighborhood manages to keep its ethnic identity, spiritual anchor, and protective sense of community decades after their immigrant parents and grandparents relied on those tools for survival to make a new home in America.
Many Italian American immigrant communities across the United States withered as new generations became "Americans" forgoing their sense of family ties and ancestral history in favor of university educations, professional careers and suburban homes. By contrast, today, third and fourth generation young professional families are choosing to raise their children in the city on the Hill.
Take a walk down the streets of this iconic Italian-American neighborhood. The residential architecture offers a dizzying array of traditional shotgun homes, old shops, and taverns creatively rehabbed as houses, and old businesses living a new life in the digital age.
The Hill: St. Louis's Celebrated Italian American Neighborhood offers insight to the immigrant experience. Enticing vignettes paired with rich history and iconic photos prepare readers for a visit to a St. Louis attraction second only to the Arch. Each is lovingly brought to life by LynnMarie Alexander, a fourth generation Italian American and proud Hill resident.
Hardcover, 11x11, 192 pages.