Book excerpt: Michael Immerso traces the history of the First Ward from the arrival of the first Italian in the 1870s until 1953 when the district was uprooted to make way for urban renewal. Richly illustrated with photographs culled from the albums and shoeboxes in the private collections of hundreds of former First Ward families from all across the United States, the book documents the evolution of the district from a small immigrant quarter into a complex Italian-American neighborhood that thrived during the first half of this century. Book jacket.