Little Italy’s Feast of San Gennaro kicks off another annual celebration marking a nearly century-long festival.
Photo by Dean Moses
Little Italy’s Feast of San Gennaro continued Sunday under sunny skies, cool weather and plenty of treats for everyone.
For 11 days, the festival — which began Thursday night — welcomes tourists and New Yorkers alike to Mulberry Street for delicious Italian food, from raw clams to sweet cannoli pastries. Thousands are said to attend the feast, where, in addition to the restaurant staples like Ferrara in Little Italy, visitors can also stop booth after booth for their favorite Zeppoli, chicken parmesan, fried shrimp, and more.
Pamela Buter came to the feast for the true mambo Italiano lasagna. While it’s been close to 20 years, the 69-year-old Bronx resident says that she was in the mood for a true feast.
“I haven’t been to the festival. I would probably say in about 20 years,” Butler admitted. But she decided that she was going to make sure she returned, and this time with her sister-in-law, so that they could feast together.
“I got lasagna because where I live in the Bronx, it’s very Latino, so it’s hard to find good lasagna. So I came down here for lasagna, and also fried shrimps,” Butler added.
Butler also shared that she felt the Feast of San Gennaro is an important staple of Little Italy, an area she feels is being pushed into a smaller section.
“This is really nice from the last time that I came, it looked like it kept shrinking and shrinking and shrinking, because a lot of Little Italy has been encroached upon. So there’s very little of it left. So it was nice to come and see how beautiful the festival has grown,” Butler said, smiling.
Hailed as the largest Italian-American festival in New York City, the Feast of San Gennaro will continue until Sept. 21 from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. along Mulberry Street between Canal and Houston Streets.
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