Pasta Triangle
Old New Jersey slang referring to the traditional, working-class Italian communities of Belleville, Bloomfield, and Nutley, in Northeastern Essex County. Most of the Italians here are descended from Newark Italians who migrated north from Newark's north end. If you go to Nutley or certain parts of Belleville, you will see people who look like they could be on the Sopranos. Nutley is known for its political conservatism and racism, as are Brookdale and Oakeview, middle-class residential areas in North Bloomfield. However, the Pasta Triangle has been declining in places as an Italian center. Belleville now also has a very large Hispanic, Filipino, and Vietnamese community, and southern and central Bloomfield has many Asians, Filipinos, African-Americans, West Indians, Russians, and South Americans. Though they still have many Italians, Nutley is the most stable, and many people from Belleville and Bloomfield have migrated from there to the West Essex-Passaic Valley-Hanover area. Belleville, Nutley, and central/north Bloomfield all have midsized, small-town type shopping centers, but the area along Bloomfield Avenue in south Bloomfield is known as a major shopping area for all of urban and suburban Essex County.
Pasta Triangle by JLe March 5, 2005