Little Brazil | town district

 invisible, town district

Thirty thousand Brazilians immigrated to New York, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2010 American Community Survey, but they seem to be gathering anywhere but Little Brazil, once a cultural mecca of the green, blue and yellow flag.

A Little Brazil street sign has stood for 16 years at the corner of West 46th Street and Seventh Avenue, with two more at Sixth and Fifth Avenues, but the center of the neighborhood has shifted from its once vibrant center to the eastern edge of the defined area, past O’Brien’s Irish Pub, John’s Shanghai Chinese Restaurant and concrete commercial high rises.

The only remaining remnants of Little Brazil are the Consulate General of Brazil and a scatter of churrascarias and restaurants, a travel agent, a shop that sells Brazilian food, clothing and accessories and the local newspaper, The Brazilians. With a nationwide circulation of 60,000, the monthly bilingual newspaper had tried for 40 years, in Portuguese and English, to reach Manhattan’s Brazilian community.

Ediberto Mendez, editor of The Brazilians, was adamant that the newspaper would stay in its current location in Little Brazil, saying that the street is symbolic of the epicenter of the wide Brazilian community in New York, even if the day-to-day Brazilian community’s presence is diminishing.

themidtowngazette.com/2011/11/where-in-the-world-is-lit...