Arbërisht
Arbëresh
Lower East Siderriving within the large Southern Italian immigrant wave beginning in the late 19th century, Arbëresh speakers (from places such as San Cosmo Albanese, Frascineto, and Acquaformosa in Calabria and Greci in Campania) came to live within broader Italian neighborhoods, beginning in Little Italy and later in the Bronx, Staten Island, and likely elsewhere. According to community historian, the substantial community of the Inwood-Lawrence-Rockaway area on the South Shore of Long Island was largely from Cerzeto and surrounding Arbëreshë villages. From 1904 to 1946, the Arbëresh priest Papas Ciro Pinnola created a parish within the Archdiocese of New York, unique in North America, dedicated to the distinctive to the (Greek-language) Byzantine Catholic rite of the Italo-Albanian Church. In recent years, the rite has been revived at Our Lady of Grace church on Staten Island.