Silver Lake was the nucleus of Belleville's Italian-American community. It has been said, in reference to the decades-long problem of flooding in the section, that Silver Lake is akin to Venice or that the Silver Lake of old continually tries to make a reappearance. Flooding, however, has not deterred the residents from building a strong community with a pronounced Italian flavor.

The Saint Anthony of Padua Roman Catholic Church has held an annual Feast of Saint Bartholomew in August. Services at the Silver Lake Baptist Church were originally in Italian. There were two macaroni factories-Davella's and Fiscella's-on Heckel Street. A nationally known fireworks firm now based in South Jersey was started in Silver Lake by Rocco Zarillo. Streets named Rocco, Cuozzo, Florence, and Naples reflect the area's ethnic orientation.

Silver Lake has produced a number of celebrities. In the world of boxing, brothers Joseph and Vincent Dundee (originally Lazzaro) were welterweight and middleweight champions, respectively, in the 1930s. Musical entertainers have included country-music singer Joe Montana Zecca, troubadour Nick Lucas, and Four Seasons member Tom DeVita.

The Silver Lake Baptist Church began as the First Italian Baptist Church of Silver Lake in 1914. Starting out as a mission church, it became self-supporting in 1929. One man, the Rev. Benedetto Pascale, served as the church's pastor for its first seventy-one years.

Another Italian church began in 1920 at meetings in the home of the D'Angelo family on Clinton Street. Becoming the Belleville Assembly of God, the congregants met at various times in locations on Union Avenue and William Street before building their present church on Holmes Street in 1950.

From 1933 until his death in 1980, the Rev. Joseph Grinnelli served as pastor of the Christian Apostolic Church. This Italian congregation began in a house in Bloomfield and then moved to Wallace Street in Belleville.

Source: Belleville: 150th-Anniversary Historical Highlights 1839-1989 by Robert B. Burnett and the Belleville 150th-Anniversary Committee Belleville, New Jersey. 1991.