Feast of San Gennaro

The 81st Annual Feast of San Gennaro, New York City’s oldest, biggest and most famous religious street festival, will be celebrated in 2008 starting Thursday, September 11 and continuing for 11 days through Sunday, September 21.

Presented annually since 1996 by Figli di San Gennaro, Inc., a not-for-profit organization, this year’s Feast will again attract more than 1-million people to the streets of historic Little Italy in the annual salute to the Patron Saint of Naples – San Gennaro. The street festivities – including religious processions with the statue of San Gennaro, parades. free entertainment, food stands and a cannoli and a cannoli eating contest – are capped on Friday, September 19 – the Official Feast Day -- with a celebratory Mass honoring San Gennaro, followed by a candlelit procession as the Statue of San Gennaro is carried from its permanent home in Most Precious Blood Church on Mulberry Street through the streets of Little Italy.

“Each year the beloved Feast of San Gennaro brings the world to Little Italy, and Little Italy to the world,” said Joseph Mattone, President of Figli di San Gennaro, Inc. “The Feast is a time for remembrance and reconciliation, and a time for celebration. The excellent food, the free musical entertainment and the excitement will all be there again this year, bigger and better than ever. On behalf of Figli di San Gennaro, I invite people of all backgrounds and ethnicities to join us in September in New York City’s Little Italy to help celebrate Italian culture and heritage.”

To see event schedules for the Feast, click here.

To see a list of participating restaurants in Little Italy, click here.