Bring Back the Wiseguys

In keeping with the spirit of Ensign Killjoy's previous post, here's another story about NYC's indigenous culture being crushed like a grape underfoot.

For Daily Downers' readers unfamiliar with NYC, "NoLita" is the too cute by half name made up by real estate tycoons for the northern section of the city's storied Little Italy neighborhood. Most of the area's residents of Italian decent are long gone, but there are still a few old-school cheese shops and salumerias that manage to hang on in addition to a strip of red gravy joints catering to tourists. And one tradition that's survived for 85 years is the San Gennaro Feast, NYC's longest-running outdoor religious festival. It's a chaotic mob-scene of religious processions, colorful parades and loads of stands selling greasy sausage and peppers sandwiches and zeppoles. It's cheesy, it's loud, it's attended mostly by boozed-up people who don't live in the neighborhood, and it's far more profane than sacred in character. It's also pretty damn fun.

But fun and tradition have no place in today's New York. The latest example of this is fancy-ass boutique owners in the "NoLita" neighborhood who are fighting tooth and nail to kill the San Gennaro Feast in order to protect their precious fabrics from the oily fingers of plebeian festival revelers. If the mafia still ruled Mulberry St., you could bet your bottom dollar that these well-heeled interlopers would keep their pretty little mouths shut and respect the neighborhood's traditions.

NOLITA — NoLita residents and merchants seeking to rid their neighborhood of the annual San Gennaro Feast scored a victory last week when Community Board 2 penned a letter to the city's permit office urging them to cut off the 85-year-old festival at Kenmare Street, the de facto border between Little Italy and NoLita.

[...]

Kim Martin, a neighborhood resident for more than 10 years who is in favor of a truncated San Gennaro Festival, said that Nolita boutiques suffer during the San Gennaro festival because street vendors block their entrances, fill their haute-couture shops with the smell of fried food, and drive off high-fashion consumers with large and rowdy crowds.

[...]

John Fratta, 58, president of the Little Italy Restoration Association and a San Gennaro boardmember who said his great grandfather founded the festival in 1926, called opposition to the feast "bigotry."

Fratta recounted a visit he made to a handbag designer north of Kenmare. When he suggested they could profit off of San Gennaro and the multitudes of people the festival attracts to the neighborhood, Fratta said he was told, "those aren't our clientele."

"That's bigotry," Fratta concluded.

But Martin, who spoke at Thursday's CB2 meeting, said NoLita business owners are just being realistic.

"The people coming to San Gennaro for canolis and fried sausages are not looking for a $100 handbag or a pair of one-of-a-kind $400 trainers," Martin said.

[DNAinfo]