There’s not much left standing from the days when the St. Rocco Society was founded. The church where it all began, St. Joachim, which was the first national parish in the United States for Italians, was demolished.

The tenements that housed the massive parish community met their end either in flames or by the wrecking ball of progress, and even Roosevelt Street, where the congregation would pour out, has been replaced by a ramp to the Manhattan Bridge. Aside from a handful of ancient photos and stories passed from generation to generation, the first home to one of the city’s oldest Italian feasts and processions is simply gone.