Our neighborhood, then and still
A community record from Pitta & Baione LLP — how this neighborhood remembers, and how the firm keeps showing up for it.
One street, and a family that never really left it
Vincent Pitta spent the first nine months of his life on the fifth floor above what is now Grotta Azzurra — and his grandfather’s fruit and vegetable store, at the corner of Mulberry and Broome. The family moved to Brooklyn before he could walk, but they never really left.
His grandmother and aunts stayed on Mulberry Street into his late teens, which meant every holiday, every Sunday, and every September brought him back.
The corner still sells fruit and vegetables. Some things on this street don’t move.
Every September, back on Mulberry Street
1926 — still going
The Feast has returned to this street since 1926, and so have we. Pitta & Baione LLP is a proud sponsor of the feast and the stage — standards, opera, jazz, and voices direct from Italy.
The Feast that never opened
The 2001 Feast was set to begin on September 13. When it was canceled and the streets below Houston were sealed, the booths stood unfinished and the kitchens sat stocked for crowds that would never arrive — so the neighborhood turned all of it toward first responders and recovery workers instead.
A new documentary gathers the restaurant families and residents who were there. The screening will be followed by an event hosted at Umberto’s Clam House on Mulberry Street.
One Hundred Years of Feeding People
The Feast began as an act of care, and it never stopped being one.
In September 1926, Neapolitan immigrants on Mulberry Street built a small chapel in the road to hold an image of San Gennaro, the patron saint of Naples, and honored him with a Feast. The men who organized it were café owners who were already feeding the neighborhood, and the money collected was given to poor families in the area.
The Feast grew from one day into 11, one for each block of Little Italy. Since 1996, it has been produced by Figli di San Gennaro, the Children of San Gennaro, a nonprofit that returns proceeds to the neighborhood. The Mass is still said at the Shrine Church of the Most Precious Blood on Baxter Street.
When the 75th Feast was canceled in 2001, the kitchens along Mulberry were already full; but the neighborhood did what it had done since 1926: it fed those who needed feeding. The Feast was still able to carry out its founding purpose.
Pitta & Baione LLP is proud to serve as Law Firm Sponsor of the 100th Feast of San Gennaro, and to have produced The Forgotten Feast with Keep Good Company. Our managing partner, Vincent Pitta, spent the first nine months of his life at 177 Mulberry Street and has not missed a Feast since.
“The Forgotten Feast”
The story of the Feast that never opened and the kitchens that fed a wounded city instead.
Twenty-five years ago, Little Italy was preparing for the 75th Feast of San Gennaro, set to begin on September 13, 2001. Restaurants had stocked their kitchens for eleven days of crowds, vendors had readied their stands, and performers were set to take the stage. Then the attacks of September 11 happened, and the Feast was canceled before it began.
In the days that followed, the restaurants of Little Italy turned from preparing for celebration to feeding the recovery. Kitchens stocked for Feast crowds began sending hot meals to firefighters, police officers, and recovery workers laboring around the clock nearby. A hot meal could not undo what had happened, but it could offer strength, a chair for a few minutes, and the knowledge that someone was looking out for them.
For Italian-American families, feeding someone has never been solely about hunger. Food is how people welcome you, celebrate you, and take care of you when something is wrong. “Did you eat?” is often another way of asking whether you are okay. After September 11, that language of care extended beyond family to a whole city.
Featuring
| John DeLutro Caffe Palermo |
Nick Criscitelli Da Nico |
| Vivian Catenaccio La Mela · Figli di San Gennaro |
Adele Gallo Casa Bella |
| Anthony Romano Benito One |
Robert Ianniello Umberto’s Clam House |
| Vincent “Buddy” Zeccardi Caffe Roma |
Jennifer Prezioso Albanese Meats & Poultry |
| Dr. Joseph Scelsa Italian American Museum |
And others whose families and businesses have been part of these streets for generations
Production Credits
| Directed by: Rosemarie Sparacio |
Produced by: Pitta & Baione LLP with Keep Good Company |
| Original Score: Sal Valentinetti & Ginger Winn |
Presented for: The 25th Anniversary of September 11 & the 100th Feast of San Gennaro |
A Centennial, Twenty-Five Years On
Sep 12 – Screening
The Forgotten Feast screens at the Italian American Museum in Little Italy
Sep 17 – The Feast
The centennial Feast of San Gennaro begins on those same streets a quarter-century later.
Sep 25 – On Stage
Sal Valentinetti performs with the NYPD Jazz Band, paying tribute to Julius LaRosa, a performer who was originally scheduled to appear at the canceled 75th Feast.
Little Italy Lives in the Exposure Zone
The Feast runs along Mulberry Street from Canal to Houston, and every block of the Feast sits inside the Exposure Zone – the area of Manhattan south of Houston Street. The federal government designated this area as the zone where responders, residents, and workers were exposed to toxins released by the collapse of the towers.
These are the people who cooked in the fall of 2001. The ones who drove the trays downtown. The ones who lived upstairs, went to school, and opened their shops each morning. This is where they lived.
Twenty-five years later, many of these people are sick and do not know why. They may not know that help exists. If you lived or worked in the Exposure Zone between September 11, 2001, and May 30, 2002, Pitta & Baione LLP can help you seek the benefits and compensation you may be entitled to.
A Living Testimony of Life and Loss on 9/11
It began as a poem partner Matthew Baione kept to himself — the last minutes of an ordinary morning, and everyone who never got to say goodbye. It became a short film scored by Ginger Winn, closer to a film score than a song, and it never names what happened because it never has to. It was shot at the St. George Theatre on Staten Island, down the block from the Postcards memorial where the poem began. Read the New York Post’s feature on 8:48.
Spotify 
YouTube 
Words by Matthew Baione · Music by Ginger Winn
The story that stayed underwater
Over the past 25 years, coverage of the toxins released due to the events on September 11, 2001 mostly concerned those that were present in the air. Far less has been said about the waters surrounding the towers, where the volume of debris and dust that entered the Hudson and New York Harbor in the weeks after the towers fell had a significant effect on the water quality and the wildlife that lived in those waters.
Pitta & Baione LLP has partnered with the Billion Oyster Project, which is restoring oyster reefs across New York Harbor. That restoration runs on discarded shells — and it now runs partly through Mulberry Street. Umberto’s Clam House, owned by longtime client and neighborhood fixture Robert Iannello, has become an official Billion Oyster shell-collection partner — the first and only in Little Italy. Shells that come out of Umberto’s kitchen no longer go to landfill; they go back into the harbor to seed new reefs.
This type of work is slow and measured over decades, which is something this firm well understands. We represent people whose illnesses took decades to surface and often the rest of their lives to manage. The harm of September 11th did not end in 2001. It is still working its way through this city, and through the water around it – and we are here to help.
a single adult oyster filters up to fifty gallons of water a day
We were here then, and we are here now.
This neighborhood has never needed to be told how to take care of its own. In 2001, kitchens stocked for a festival started cooking for firefighters, and kept cooking for months, because that was what there was to do.
All these years later, people who simply lived, worked, or went to school below Houston Street are still getting sick — many never connecting it back. That’s the part the firm can help with. Consultations are free.
