Berenice Abbott is best known for her black and white photographs of New York in transition in the 1930s. Sponsored by the Federal Art Project, a New Deal program, Abbott produced over 300 photographs of New York’s urban landscape, culminating in the book Changing New York, which was published to coincide with the 1939 New York World’s Fair. One of the photographs in this series is an image of A. Zito & Sons, the famous Italian bakery once located in Greenwich Village.
Antonio Zito emigrated from Palermo, Sicily with his wife Josephine, opening Zito’s bakery on Bleecker Street in 1924. The bakery was well known for their delicious crusty wheat bread, a staple at any Italian family’s Sunday dinner. Zito’s was run by Antonio and Josephine’s grandson, Anthony, at the time it closed its doors in 2004, after 80 years of producing a beloved New York staple.