Neapolitan immigrants living around Mulberry Street held New York’s first Feast of San Gennaro on September 19, 1926, honoring the patron saint of Naples with a procession and neighborhood celebration. The observance grew from a one-day immigrant gathering into an eleven-day festival combining Catholic ritual, Italian American identity and street food. Sausage-and-pepper sandwiches, zeppole, cannoli, pasta and other festival dishes became as visible as the saint’s statue and religious procession. By occupying the streets rather than a private hall, the feast turned food vending into a public expression of belonging for a community adapting regional Italian traditions to New York. The 2026 centennial demonstrates how an immigrant patronal feast could outlast major demographic changes in Little Italy and become a citywide culinary institution while retaining its connection to Naples.
A Century of the Feast of San Gennaro in Little Italy
AD 1926
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