Giglio Society of East Harlem is a non profit Italian-American society located in East Harlem, Manhattan, New York City, that sponsors an annual feast honoring their patron saint, Saint Anthony.
Southern Italian immigrants predominated East Harlem, or Italian Harlem, especially in the area east of Lexington Avenue between 96th and 116th Streets and east of Madison Avenue between 116th and 125th Streets, with each street featuring people from different regions of Italy.[ citation needed ] The neighborhood became known as "Italian Harlem." The Italian American hub of Manhattan; it was the first part of Manhattan to be referred to as "Little Italy."[ citation needed ]
Many families from the town of Brusciano, Italy migrated to East Harlem bringing with their tradition of the yearly Dance of the Giglio festival in honor of Anthony of Padua. [1] The Giglio ("lily" in Italian) is an 80-foot-tall, three-ton statue which is carried and danced through the streets of East Harlem by over 100 members of the society.[ citation needed ]
The first Giglio Feast on 106th street in East Harlem started approximately in 1908.[ citation needed ] Giocchino Vivolo is credited for being the first Capo Paranza on 106th Street.[ citation needed ] The Festival on 106th Street grew for many years becoming one of the largest street fairs in America and remained that way until 1955.[ citation needed ] Then, in 1957, the festival moved a few blocks uptown to 108th Street, where the Dance of the Giglio continued until 1971.[ citation needed ]
After a 29-year hiatus, the Dance of the Giglio returned to East Harlem in 2000 as a Cooperative Feast with the Church of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel. The feast is now located on Pleasant Avenue between 114th street and 116th street. In 2006, it was decided to hold the Dance of the Giglio Festival separate from the annual Our Lady of Mt Carmel feast. The decision to move the Dancing of the Giglio dates was made in order to relieve the strain on the Giglio community. [2]
The East Harlem Giglio feast is held annually on the second weekend of August on Pleasant Avenue, drawing thousands of visitors, former residents and tourists from around the world. The 3-ton Giglio statue is danced on the shoulders of over 100 faithful on the second Sunday of August. [3]
Harlem is a neighborhood in Upper Manhattan, New York City. It is bounded roughly by the Hudson River on the west; the Harlem River and 155th Street on the north; Fifth Avenue on the east; and Central Park North on the south. The greater Harlem area encompasses several other neighborhoods and extends west and north to 155th Street, east to the East River, and south to Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, Central Park, and East 96th Street.
Anthony of Padua, OFM or Anthony of Lisbon was a Portuguese Roman Catholic priest and friar of the Franciscan Order.
Little Italy is a neighborhood in Lower Manhattan in New York City, known for its Italian population. It is bounded on the west by Tribeca and Soho, on the south by Chinatown, on the east by the Bowery and Lower East Side, and on the north by Nolita.
East Harlem, also known as Spanish Harlem or El Barrio, is a neighborhood of Upper Manhattan in New York City, north of the Upper East Side and bounded by 96th Street to the south, Fifth Avenue to the west, and the East and Harlem Rivers to the east and north. Despite its name, it is generally not considered to be a part of Harlem proper, but it is one of the neighborhoods included in Greater Harlem.
Rao's is a Southern Italian restaurant founded in 1896. It is located at 455 East 114th Street, on the corner of Pleasant Avenue in East Harlem, New York City. Rao's has sister restaurants in Los Angeles and Las Vegas, Nevada.
First Avenue is a north-south thoroughfare on the East Side of the New York City borough of Manhattan, running from Houston Street northbound to 127th Street. At 125th Street, most traffic continues onto the Willis Avenue Bridge over the Harlem River, which continues into the Bronx. South of Houston Street, the roadway continues as Allen Street south to Division Street. Traffic on First Avenue runs northbound (uptown) only.
Our Lady of Mount Carmel, or Virgin of Carmel, is the title given to the Blessed Virgin Mary in her role as patroness of the Carmelite Order, particularly within the Catholic Church. The first Carmelites were Christian hermits living on Mount Carmel in the Holy Land during the late 12th and early to mid-13th century. They built in the midst of their hermitages a chapel which they dedicated to the Blessed Virgin, whom they conceived of in chivalric terms as the "Lady of the place." Our Lady of Mount Carmel was adopted in the 19th century as the patron saint of Chile.
Avenue A is a north–south avenue located in Manhattan, New York City, east of First Avenue and west of Avenue B. It runs from Houston Street to 14th Street, where it continues into a loop road in Stuyvesant Town, connecting to Avenue B. Below Houston Street, Avenue A continues as Essex Street.
The Church of the Holy Rosary was a Roman Catholic parish church under the authority of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York, located at 444 East 119th Street, East Harlem, Manhattan, New York City.
Manhattan Center for Science and Mathematics is a public high school at East 116th Street between Pleasant Avenue and FDR Drive in East Harlem, within Upper Manhattan, New York City.
A street fair celebrates the character of a neighborhood. As its name suggests, it is typically held on the main street of a neighborhood.
Marcus Garvey Park is a 20.16-acre (81,600 m2) park on the border between the Harlem and East Harlem neighborhoods of Manhattan, New York City. The park, centered on a massive and steep outcropping of schist, interrupts the flow of Fifth Avenue traffic, which is routed around the park via Mount Morris Park West. The park is also bounded by 120th Street to the south, 124th Street to the north, and Madison Avenue to the east.
116th Street runs from Riverside Drive, overlooking the Hudson River, to the East River, through the New York City borough of Manhattan. It traverses the neighborhoods of Morningside Heights, Harlem, and Spanish Harlem; the street is interrupted between Morningside Heights and Harlem by Morningside Park.
The Columbus Avenue Line is a public transit line in Manhattan, New York City, running mostly along Columbus Avenue, 116th Street, and Lenox Avenue from Lower Manhattan to Harlem. Originally a streetcar line, it is now the M7 bus route, operated by the New York City Transit Authority, a division of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.
The 116th Street Crew, also known as the Uptown Crew, is a group of Italian-American mobsters within the Genovese crime family. In the early 1960s, Anthony Salerno became one of the most powerful capos in the family. Salerno based the crew in the Palma Boys Social Club located at 416 East 115th Street in East Harlem, Manhattan. By the late 1970s and early 1980s, the 116th Street Crew had absorbed and initiated many former members of the vicious East Harlem Purple Gang, an Italian-American murder for hire and drug trafficking gang operating in 1970s Italian Harlem and acting generally independent of the Mafia.
The East Harlem Purple Gang was a gang or organized crime group consisting of Italian-American hit-men and heroin dealers who were semi-independent from the Italian-American Mafia and, according to federal prosecutors, dominated heroin distribution in East Harlem, Italian Harlem, and the Bronx during the 1970s and early 1980s in New York City. Though mostly independent of the Italian-American Mafia and not an official Mafia crew, the gang was originally affiliated with and worked with the Lucchese crime family and later with the Bonanno crime family and Genovese crime family. It developed its "closest ties" with the Genovese family, and its remnants or former members are now part of the Genovese family's 116th Street Crew.
Pleasant Avenue is a north-south street in the East Harlem neighborhood of the New York City borough of Manhattan. It begins at E. 114th Street and ends at E. 120th Street. The street was the northernmost section of Avenue A, which stretched from Alphabet City northward, and was added to the grid wherever space allowed between First Avenue and the East River. This stretch was renamed "Pleasant Avenue" in 1879. Unlike York Avenue, however, the addresses on Pleasant Avenue are not continuous with that on Avenue A.
Founded in the 17th century as a Dutch outpost, Harlem developed into a farming village, a revolutionary battlefield, a resort town, a commuter town, a center of African-American culture, a ghetto, and a gentrified neighborhood.
New York City has the largest population of Italian Americans in the United States of America as well as North America, many of whom inhabit ethnic enclaves in Brooklyn, the Bronx, Manhattan, Queens, and Staten Island. New York is home to the third largest Italian population outside of Italy, behind Buenos Aires, Argentina (first) and São Paulo, Brazil (second). Over 2.6 million Italians and Italian-Americans live in the greater New York metro area, with about 800,000 living within one of the five New York City boroughs. This makes Italian Americans the largest ethnic group in the New York metro area.
The Pontifical shrine of Our Lady of Mount Carmel is a Roman Catholic parish church under the authority of the Archdiocese of New York, located in East Harlem, Manhattan, New York City, United States. The church's formal address is 448 East 116th Street, although the entrance to the church building is on East 115th Street, just off Pleasant Avenue. The parish enshrines a vested statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary under the title of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, widely venerated by its devotees.