New York’s biggest, most famous and longest running religious feast festival – the 84th Annual Feast of San Gennaro – will take place in Little Italy for 11 days starting Thursday, September 16, and continuing through Sunday, September 26, 2010. The Feast is presented annually by Figli di San Gennaro, a not-for-profit community organization that has produced and operated the Feast since 1996. The Official Feast Day is Sunday, September 19, when a Mass celebrating the martyrdom of San Gennaro, the Patron Saint of Naples, takes place inside Most Precious Blood Sanctuary on Baxter Street at 2 PM, followed immediately by a religious procession with the statue through the streets of Little Italy.

The beloved Feast of San Gennaro is an annual celebration of the Patron Saint of Naples. The first Feast in New York City took place on September 19, 1926 when newly arrived immigrants from Naples settled along Mulberry Street in the Little Italy section of New York City and decided to continue the tradition they had followed in Italy to celebrate the day in 305 A.D. when Saint Gennaro was martyred for the faith.

Since then, the Feast has grown from a one-day street party to a gala 11-day event. On September 19 during each Feast, a Religious Procession, including the Statue of San Gennaro, winds along the length of Mulberry and Mott Streets, between Canal and Houston Streets. The procession begins immediately following a Celebratory Mass held at the Most Precious Blood Church on Mulberry Street, the National Shrine of San Gennaro.