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Jan and Ed D’Amico are on their third visit to Ferrara, one of the oldest bakeries in Manhattan’s Little Italy. “We come to the city this time of year to see the Rockettes,” Jan says, referring to the annual Radio City Christmas show. They’re from Rochester. A teacher friend of theirs who lives in Chinatown brought them to Ferrara for the first time about five years ago. Jan, the talker of the two, says, “We came right back the next day and did it again.”

The D’Amicos are tidy people—Jan in a matching maroon turtleneck sweater and leather jacket, Ed wearing slacks and an argyle sweater in complementary shades of green. Jan and Ed are in their early 60s—he with a lined face and white Velcro sneakers, she with papery skin and a low cloud of pale orange hair. They’re sitting on the same side of a rectangular marble-topped table facing the pedestrian traffic on Grand Street. He’s eating a dish of chocolate gelato, she vanilla.

Jan’s pink leather gloves are stacked neatly beside her water glass and she toys with one empty thumb for a minute before describing the beginning of their evening. “We had dinner at Buona Notte down the street and then we came here,” she says. They aren't staying in this neighborhood. They’ll take a cab back to their hotel in Times Square, and tomorrow they’ll go see "Thoroughly Modern Millie." Jan and Ed are typical of Ferrara’s tourist clientele these days. Once a locals-only neighborhood hub, Ferrara has become one of many stops on a long “to do” list.

Though many of Little Italy's festive European-style storefronts seem like theme park- variety tourist devices to native New Yorkers, what’s old about Ferrara is authentic.

One of the oldest original businesses in the neighborhood, Ferrara has held its own on Grand St. for more than 100 years. Shiny mahogany wall paneling, marble floors and brass fixtures give this long-time mom-and-pop place the feel of Rome's grand cafes, but as neighborhoods change, businesses adapt to survive. Ferrara is now “Ferrara, Inc.,” a fully incorporated business with three stores, online catering and a national shipping plan.

As an "attraction," Ferrara ranks high on all the right lists and boasts several Zagat approval stars. The neighborhood itself has also become more spectacle than function. People come for the scenery and ceremony of Mulberry and Grand Streets and for take-home pastry in string-tied white cardboard boxes more often than to pass the time over coffee and cannoli with friends and neighbors. When New Yorkers want quality Italian food they now look to Mario Batali, not to Little Italy’s red, white and green restaurant row. But despite the transient nature of a once locals-heavy clientele, Ferrara’s old neighborhood intimacy persists, perhaps because it’s more a family heirloom than a store, historic street façade intact.
While it may be true that what’s “little” in Little Italy nowadays is the population of Italian people who built it (many have moved out to Long Island or New Jersey) the Ferrara people are still around. Ferrara has remained a family-owned and operated business since 1892. Antonio Ferrara, a well-known stage performer and opera singer at the time, opened the café with his friend Enrico Scoppa, another first generation immigrant. As the story goes, the men thought the neighborhood needed an inviting late-night haven for local men to go after theater and opera performances to play cards, smoke cigars, and drink espresso.