The first issue of Good Morning Italy, the new English-language magazine by the ilNewyorkese network, was presented in New York with an event at the Italian American Museum in Little Italy. The choice of venue was not incidental: founded by Dr. Joseph Scelsa, the Italian American Museum has long worked to preserve the history of Italians in the United States, in one of the neighborhoods that more than any other helped shape the image of Italian immigration in New York. Presenting a new magazine dedicated to contemporary Italy and the Italian-American community there meant bringing together the memory of a historic presence and the attempt to tell what it means today to be Italian, or to feel connected to Italy, outside Italy’s borders.
The evening was moderated by Davide Ippolito, founder of the ilNewyorkese network, and Premium Pete, a podcaster and well-known figure in the New York scene. The conversation focused on roots, family, immigration, ambition, belonging, and the ways Italian identity is reworked by those who live and work in international contexts. This is an important point, because when Italian identity abroad is discussed, there is often a risk of remaining stuck in a nostalgic or purely celebratory representation, made up of pasta, the sea, the sun, a leaning tower, or a very large amphitheater, and little else. Good Morning Italy was created with a different goal: to tell stories of people, paths, and communities, without reducing them to symbols.
Among the evening’s speakers was Dr. Joseph Scelsa, who reflected on the museum’s role as a place of preservation but also of generational passage. The idea is that Italian-American history is not only something to be protected in archival form, but also material that new generations can reread and use to better understand their place in American society.
On a different level, tenor Christopher Macchio spoke about Italian music as an emotional and cultural language, able to connect family memory with public recognition. Model Elena Azzaro also took part, offering a reflection connected to fashion and entertainment, and explaining how the Italian image continues to circulate in highly competitive fields, where elegance and identity often risk becoming empty formulas if they are not supported by a real path. Armand Assante, the American actor of Italian descent, also attended the presentation and connected the theme of identity to discipline and the construction of a career.
During the event, a video message from Fabrizio Brienza was also shown. Brienza, an Italian actor, model, and influencer based in New York, is the cover figure of the first issue. The cover story traces his path between Italy, entertainment, and New York nightlife: a trajectory built outside the most predictable routes, used by the magazine to speak about Italian identity in a less conventional form.
The first issue of Good Morning Italy features interviews and conversations with a range of figures, including Riccardo Silva, Kathrine Narducci, Gianluca Passi, Francesco Facchinetti, as well as Premium Pete, Christopher Macchio, Elena Azzaro, and Armand Assante. What connects these names is not only personal success, but their relationship with Italy as an origin, a cultural reference, or a symbolic space to be reinterpreted.
After the presentation, the evening continued with a reception at Ferrara Bakery, hosted by Ernest Lepore and the Lepore family, again in the heart of Little Italy. This choice also had a precise meaning: to close the launch in one of the historic addresses of the Italian presence in the neighborhood.