Imagining Little Italy’s annual Feast of San Gennaro without the spicy links from Lucy’s Sausage is all but impossible. Maybe that’s because the pork peddler celebrates its 95th year in business this month, making it one of New York’s most iconic Italian-American businesses — you don’t end up in a “Godfather” movie for nothing — just one year younger than the feast itself.
Lucy Spata, 71, a diminutive Brooklynite broadcasting big no-nonsense energy, has been running the business for just over half a century now, an achievement not lost on the present-day founders of the Feast. And so, things will be a little different for the sausage-slinging septuagenarian at this year’s street party, which runs on Mulberry Street until Sept. 25th. This time around, Spata has been crowned the official “Queen” of the festival.
