The 1930s Little Italy of a New York–born painter

Born in East Harlem’s Little Italy in 1902, Daniel R. Celentano studied with painter Thomas Hart Benton as a kid and later worked as an artist for the WPA.

He painted scenes all over New York but is perhaps best known for his depictions of sometimes raucous, sometimes solemn Italian-American neighborhood life during the Depression and World War II.

“Festival,” from 1934, features a “lively scene, evoking the scents of tasty Italian food, is overshadowed by the immense natural-gas tanks at the right that once blighted Manhattan’s immigrant slums,” states the Smithsonian website.

“Italian Harlem Street Scene” (I’m not certain of the exact date) is more foreboding.

The cross way in the distance on top of the tenement looks like it’s about to snap in the wind.

A misty, muted view of the East River

“East River Scene” by American painter Elias Ben Delman gives us smoke-spewing tugboats, murky blue-gray water, and a Manhattan skyline that seems obscure and awfully far away.

This painting has something subdued yet magical going on. I wish I knew more about the artist and the scene he chose to depict.