s a breakneck beat of drums, whistles and bells urged them on, the sidewalk diners got up from half-eaten dishes of peppers and pasta and started shimmying their way onto Arthur Avenue. Blame the wine? Better pin it on Francesco Castiglione, who with his black leather jacket and wraparound shades cut a hip figure as he serenaded those who dared to be wallflowers at his street party.

"Terra Bella!" he sang in Italian to a decidedly non-Italian samba beat. "I come to America, and what am I going to find? That's my song. Let's go!"

Heads tossed back, arms spread wide and the party hit the Bronx street, where Francesco stopped cars with out-of-state plates for impromptu singalongs. Diners leaving other restaurants joined in, too. As the song wound down, he segued into a booming version of "Volare" with enough reverb to make it sound as if Dean Martin himself were crooning from the heavens.

The second season of sidewalk concerts turned the Arthur Avenue Cafe into "Big Night" meets "A Bronx Tale" - except with Francesco at the mike, nobody was waiting for Louis Prima. And this party was in the Bronx, unlike the cinematic tale, which was filmed in Astoria, Queens. Just as Astoria isn't just Greek anymore, Arthur Avenue probably has more Albanians, Mexicans, Dominicans and Puerto Ricans than Italians. But romantic notions - of food, the old days and older ways - still sell.

"The Italian soul is here, but it is disappearing," said Nick Santilli, a regular on the avenue who grew up in Abruzzi, Italy; shopped in East Harlem when that area was solidly Italian; and lived in Yorkville when German could still be heard on its streets. "This is like Italy from 40, 50 years ago. It retained that classic character, not the new character. This music is like Neapolitan songs. Italian music today is 50 Cent and Snoop Doggy Dogg. This Italy existed years ago."

The Italy that exists today made Francesco, 22 and on a first-name basis with everyone, decide it was time to leave his native Calabria a couple of years ago. He had been a musician ever since the sight of his grandfather's accordion sitting on a dresser entranced him when he was 4 years old. He studied piano for 10 years at a conservatory and taught music for a while before he knew that he had to leave.

"Southern Italy is really difficult to make it," he said. "If I was from Rome or Milan, it would be different."

He shrugged. He said he had family in the area, so he joined them.

"We always look to that thing of Sinatra," he said. "If you can make it in New York, you can make it anywhere."

A mutual friend introduced him to David Greco, who had recently opened a cafe on Arthur Avenue, across the street from the market where his family runs Mike's Deli. Mr. Greco, a member of the younger generation who was intent on keeping part of Arthur Avenue culturally authentic in ways long gone in Manhattan's Little Italy, was looking for a singer. He had not heard Francesco utter a single note, but he was impressed just by the way he carried himself.

"He had confidence," Mr. Greco said. "My father gave me the same kind of confidence. I can sell salami to anybody because of him. Francesco had so much confidence, I knew he had to have talent."

Soon enough, he was able to win over the toughest critics in the neighborhood when he kept a wedding after-party going for hours after quitting time. In a couple of years, he has already done well, appearing on several television shows and visiting Hollywood - where he innocently turned down one private gig with the question, "Who is Joe Pesci?"

His goal is to find stardom in Argentina, which makes sense since he mixes Italian lyrics with Latin and Caribbean rhythms, along with more than a little eye-flashing charm. In New York, he had to learn some new, American songs, like "That's Amore," which turns out isn't Italian.

You might say the same thing about the neighborhood, too, despite the efforts of its most boosterish merchants. Like Spanish Harlem, Yorkville, Astoria or the Lower East Side, the ethnic enclaves of the past sometimes live on only in the stores that cater to those who grew up there or tourists seeking an authentic ethnic experience.

Was there ever a real ethnic haven where outsiders from all countries were welcomed? One where diners danced in the streets and sidewalk singers made the ladies swoon?

In a way, the answer lies in the old country - specifically, those who left and came to places like Arthur Avenue, where they recreated their old towns as they settled into their new one. Their children, the ones who grew up being dragged by the hand from store to store, have one memory of it. Their grandchildren have yet another, more selective remembrance of weekend visits to a place that makes their parents get all dreamy on shopping trips for cheese, bread and pasta.

"There are some people who are into this delusion, who will describe these places as being the real Little Italy," said Jerry Krase, a past president of the American Italian Historical Association. "To me, the real Italian ethnic neighborhoods are the places they do not know about. What makes it a real place is that it is a place others do not go to."

According to Fred Gardaphé, a professor of Italian-American studies at State University at Stony Brook, the largest concentration of Italians in New York State is in Suffolk County.

"The whole thing about becoming American is you have got to leave Little Italy," Mr. Gardaphé said. "When you leave, it becomes more romantic in their mind. If it was so beautiful, why did you leave it? What it is, then, is it becomes an ethnic Disneyland. And God forbid they go to Disney and see what they did to Italy."

Given that last thought, maybe these neighborhoods do serve a noble purpose in offering a taste of authenticity in an Olive Garden world. Mr. Greco, a fan of all things Italian, insists he embarked on his cafe business because he wanted people to eat in a causal atmosphere like back in Calabria. It wasn't because of money, since his cafe has not turned a profit. What it has done, he said, is brought some life to the street at night.

"This is my neighborhood," Mr. Greco said. "People think I just run a business here. But I spent six, seven days a week here. I'm here more than I am at my house. Maybe I should mind my own business."

He thought about that for a minute. "I want this to stay as an Italian bar," he said. "What I do not want is to sell this so it becomes another Albanian club."

At Francesco's season premiere two weekends ago, the patrons at an Albanian restaurant across the street barely looked up as he set up his keyboard, accordion and amplifier. Mexican laborers walked home, tired and grimy, clutching bags from McDonald's.

Francesco, singing to no one in particular, wandered the street singing, in Italian, "A Whiter Shade of Pale." The lyrics made about as much sense in his mother tongue as they do in English, which is to say none. Francesco stepped back into the cafe, where the diners swayed ever so slightly as he sang "Come Back to Sorrento" to folks who most likely had just come over from Fordham University or Connecticut, where he sometimes also sings at a restaurant.

A few minutes - and drinks - later, the crowd was moving onto the street.

"The difference is when I play in Connecticut, they are really quiet," Francesco said. "When they come to the Bronx, they sing and go crazy."

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company