“Outside of a few Italian restaurants, I doubt Little Italy has many actual Italian-identifying Americans living in it any more.”
Not if the photo is any evidence unless the “Italians” in the photo standing on the flag emigrated from Africa. The Italians in NYC kept the rioters from pulling down the Columbus statue two weeks ago.
Italians in nearby Nutley NJ did the same thing a couple of weeks ago; a small band of ferals from Newark make their way a couple of towns northward protesting the statue there, but the cops and locals saw that it wasn’t touched.
It probably helped that many of the Italians that live in the towns north of Newark are the children and grandchildren of those chased out after the Newark Simba riots of the 1960s.