“This is my first time coming on a Saturday and it happens to be after the… it’s really not after – we’re still in the pandemic, but I guess after mass vaccination, so I’m actually quite surprised to see how many people are here,” said Eric Johnson, 32, of Harlem  ”

 Johnson said he isn’t scared to be around a large group of people since he is vaccinated.

 “We’ve been risking it all for a while,” said Johnson. “I mean, you know, I’m not scared. I was vaccinated back in April. Nothing’s happened since then. I ride the trains. This is a little different for me though, I’ve never been in this type of crowd for quite some time, but I am hoping for the best. I think we’ll be alright.”

 Anna Delgado, 62, from Queens said she was a regular at the San Gennaro Feast. She also felt safe in the large group due to the vaccination rates in Little Italy. 

“Some people, they are aware of the pandemic,” said Delgago. “They use masks, but I think around 70 percent of the people over here, they already had the vaccination. That’s very good for New York.”

According to the CDC, 85.54 percent of Hudson Square, Little Italy, SoHo, and Tribeca are vaccinated. This is higher than Manhattan’s vaccination rate of 79.09 percent and New York City’s vaccination rate of 69.45 percent. The case and death rate for these neighborhoods are also lower than Manhattan’s as well as New York City’s.

 With hundreds of people unmasked in such close quarters, the feast does have the potential to  be a super spreader event as fully vaccinated people are still getting infected with Covid.  The vaccine card and mask mandates  are not required for outdoor events.

But the crowds who walked around eating cannolis and smoked sausages were not afraid and neither were the vendors hawking the food.

 “It doesn’t matter because we’re all outside, “ said Angelique Aquilino, 36, a pastry stand owner.  “We can do whatever we want to do, and everybody’s happy.”

Not every vendor was comfortable with the crowds.

Josephine Caso, sister of the owner of Cafe Napoli, checking her reflection in a window at the Feast of San Gennaro in Little Italy. Photo by Maggie Geiler

“I tell you I’m a little leery,” said Josephine Caso, 85, sister of the owner of Café Napoli. “Thank God that everybody’s healthy, [my family and I] all got our shots, we’re happy to be back.”

 Caso and her family handed out cannoli’s, almond-filled pastries, and zeppole to customers waiting in long lines, some for up to 45 minutes. With much of Little Italy’s income being dependent on tourism, the tight-knit community was hit hard by the pandemic, causing most restaurants to lay off staff members and some to deal with closing.

 “Forget it, forget it, it was a disaster,” said Caso “I’ll tell you the truth, I was scared. We had the place closed for a year and a half, nobody walked the streets. It was very hard.”

Business owners hoped the feast would be the boost neighborhood businesses would need.

“With the whole festival going on, hopefully it boosts everything back up, said Manuel Siguencia,37, the manager  at Il Cortilo restaurant. “All of Little Italy is packed… it’s so awesome.”

And the 11-day festival was exceeding their expectations.

 “We were afraid that it wouldn’t be like this coming back,” said Aquilino. “It’s like nothing ever happened. Like we just fell asleep and woke up and we’re back where we were. Everyone is back. This neighborhood needed this.”

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Among the sea of people and through billowing clouds of smoke from hot griddles, a familiar face smiled and waved to passersby. Tony Danza, actor and co-owner of Alleva Dairy, served Italian specialties to customers in front of his store on the corner of Mulberry and Grand Streets, one of the many restaurants that participated in the 91^st Annual Feast of San Gennaro in Manhattan’s Little Italy.

“No one understands the amount of effort that goes into putting on the festival,” said Danza, clad in an Alleva t-shirt and disposable vinyl gloves. “Everyone puts in so much time and so much effort for the 11 days, and four days of setup before, so 15 days!”

Alleva Cheese had no need to shout to gain people’s attention, as visitors flocked to the street stand to get a glimpse of Danza, 66, at work. The “Who’s the Boss?” and “Taxi” star said he was going to work the stand each day during the festival. Danza can often be found working the cash register at the little cheese shop which calls itself “the oldest cheese shop in the nation.”

Meanwhile a photo with Danza was a bigger draw than the cheese. Danza, a native New Yorker, paused to take photos with fans in between serving pasta, meat and cheese.

Days before the Feast, Danza posted a photo to Instagram of himself serving sausage and peppers at the Alleva Cheese stand in 2016. He became a co-owner of the cheese shop four years ago.

Danza wasn’t the only celebrity sighting at the Feast. Chazz Palminteri, writer and Academy Award-nominated actor, was this year’s Grand Marshal.

“Now yous can’t leave!” Many spectators shouted at Palminteri who rode on the Figli Di San Gennaro, Inc. float, which led the parade yesterday.  The line was uttered by, Sonny, a character made famous in the film he wrote and starred in, “A Bronx Tale.”

Palminteri laughed and waved back as the float carried him down Mulberry Street.

After the parade, Palminteri took a photo with NYPD officers that he tweeted to his 55.9 thousand followers, captioned, “With NYPD at the Saint Genaro feast on Mulberry Street – may God Bless them.”

Smells of Italian cuisine permeated the area as visitors enjoyed the copious amounts of food and browsed stands full of gold jewelry, clothing and collectibles. The 11-day feast hosted hundred of vendors and honored the patron saint of Naples.

Sausage and peppers sizzle on a griddle at the 91st Annual Feast of San Gennaro in Little Italy. Photo by Lauren Garry

“For some, they make a whole year’s salary during the Feast,” said Rob Cervoni, 29, from Roslyn, Long Island. This was the first year the New Yorker parked his 16 Handles mobile trailer in the row of vendors at the festival. “This is one of the greatest feasts in the world, and one of the biggest,” he said pouring frozen lemonade for a customer through the trailer’s serving window.

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The red, white and green clad streets of Little Italy yesterday afternoon were empty. Hundreds of vendor tents lined the walkways, selling everything from pizza and cannolis to Italian flags and clothing, But customers were scarce.

Despite crowds being thin, expectations among the vendors were up with over a million visitors expected during the 89th year of the Feast of San Gennaro.

The annual feast is meant to keep the spirit and faith of the Italian immigrants alive, and to pay tribute to the patron saint of Naples, San Gennaro. Thousands of Italians emigrated from Naples, Italy, to the lower Manhattan neighborhood of Little Italy over a century ago in search of a better life. But the descendants of the immigrants have long moved to Brooklyn, Staten Island and beyond. Only a few Italian stores and restaurants which stand as reminders of the bustling Italian neighborhood it once was

Vendor Rose Lansang, of Bayonne, NJ said she knew why business was slow. The feast started right after Labor Day and had other holidays stacked behind it.

“[The visitors] just came back from their holiday, then the Jewish holiday was approaching, so you know, their minds were set on school opening, not on the feast,” she said.

Lansang and her daughter, Dorothy Lansang, are the owners of Street Fair Cosmetics based in New Jersey. They have had a stand in the festival for over 25 years.

The duo’s beauty stand on the corner of Mott and Hester Street sold discounted cosmetics, including body lotions, bath products, makeup kits, and hundreds of nail polish colors just waiting to be bought.

Liza Nagelkirk, 26, of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, was hoping to see bigger crowds.
This was her first year working the festival as the event manager of Gelso & Grand restaurant, and her spot was at the wooden high-top window bar serving food and alcohol to passersby.

Liza Nagelkirk, the manager of Gelso & Grand, awaits the influx of customers the sunny weekend weather is predicted to bring. Photo by Leann Garofolo

“We started off with it being rainy, and so that was difficult for people,” Nagelkirk said of the thin crowds. “I think a lot of people put it off because they knew this weekend coming up was going to be nice, and they’re like, we’ll just go. I think it’s going to be swamped this weekend”

Fabrizio Facchetti, 21, an Italian immigrant who lives in the Bronx, worked out
of a makeshift café stand in front of the Christmas in New York Store, which also happened to be his second job. He compared scooping gelato and preparing cappuccino to his days as a pastry chef in Milan. He was hopeful the crowds would come.

“Everybody, maybe they are working,” Facchetti said. “Most of [the customers right now] are tourists from all parts of the world, like Italy, Asia, South America. But tonight is going to be busy, trust me.”

Camille Welsh, of Naples, Italy, has assisted her family in working at the stand for their restaurant, the Mulberry Street Bar, for 72 years. Welsh grew so accustomed to Little Italy that she moved to Mulberry Street to live permanently, just a short distance from her family bar, which also boasted Thursday karaoke nights and weekly comedy shows.

Welsh’s familiarity with the festival helps her understand the occasional lull in business.

“Now it’s the middle of the day,” she said. “People are still at work, lunch time is really over, dinner didn’t start yet. It comes in spurts.”

A few idle visitors walked by to check out the various homemade pizzas lining the picnic table style stand for the family’s bar. They walked away empty-handed.

“You never know how crowded it is going to be,” she continued. “So, it’s like anything else. It’s like the weather. You don’t know if the sun is going to come or the rain. So, whatever happens, happens.”

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Paris Jenkins, 54, sits under the tent of the traveling freak show that stopped in downtown Manhattan yesterday. Jenkins is an operator and handyman for the show. Photo by Emily Canal

At the Feast of San Gennaro yesterday, attendees nibbled on Italian pastries while watching Krystine Kadaverous gargle rubbing alcohol before she ignited the air with flames.

The freak show tent, a dark horse in a festival devoted to tradition and religtion, was nestled between a sausage stand and a cannoli cart on Mulberry Street in Little Italy.

“My boss calls me hot lips,” said Kadaverous, a 28-year-old Detroit native, before she spat the flammable liquid into the air. “Tastes better than a cannoli.”

This is the first year a freak show  joined the likes of Italian cuisine and keepsakes. The unnamed red and white tent advertised classic attractions such as the sword swallower, elephant woman and two-headed kid, none of which were present.

“People either love it or tell other people it’s not worth it,” said Paris Jenkins, 54, an operator and handyman for the traveling show. “You can’t please everyone, but there’s nothing like it here.”

The feast, which honors San Gennaro as the patron of saints of Naples, began in 1926.

Jenkins said the group formed about two years ago on Coney Island at Sideshows by the Seashore. A friend of the team, who owns a parking lot on Mulberry, invited the crew to use the space during the festival. Jenkins said it was a good use of space because traffic is blocked during the festivities.

“All in all, it came together pretty good,” said Jenkins, a Texas resident, as he smoked a fat cigar outside the tent while collecting tickets. “We aren’t making crazy money, but we will make a dime.”

For a $2 admission, customers got a 10-minute show with Kadaverous and a peak at glass aquariums holding faux models of a mermaid girl, lizard boy and Siamese twin turtles. Jenkins said about 100 people visit the tent each day.

“We came to get lunch and this looked like a funny and stupid thing to see,” said Ali Ahearn, 25, from Long Island. “It’s new, and for $2, why not?”

Kadaverous waited for at least 10 customers to arrive before beginning her show. The patrons hovered near the stage, but promptly moved away when she began her fire-breathing tricks.

“The poster with big snakes on it caught our eye,” said Yvette Dendugn, 37, a tourist from Holland who was selected from the audience to participate. “Freak shows are such an American thing.”

Kadaverous finagled her way out of shackles, stood on ignited shards of glass and put her hand in an animal trap for an audience that neglected to clap and left before the show ended.

“Usually I have more volunteers,” Kadaverous said after her performance. “Sometimes I make it too scary from the beginning.”

Jenkins said the only change to the group’s show was the exclusion of the snakes that are usually displayed outside the tent. He said one of the organizers of the feast didn’t like snakes.

“I think it was a personal thing for him and had nothing to do with safety,” Jenkins said. “Nothing attracts people like snakes – well, except a monkey, but we don’t have one.”

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