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There is good news as well as some less cheerful tidings in Lifeblood of the Parish: Men and Catholic Devotion in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, an ethnographic look at Italian-American communal rituals in New York. The author conducted years of fieldwork at the Shrine Church of Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Brooklyn, and the book focuses on the men who are...

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The areas known as “Little Italy” abound in the United States from coast to coast. The individual locations are Italian-American enclaves established in cities where immigrants settled in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The food typically reflects this heritage, as well, with menus offering the staples inspired by the immigrant experience o...

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A crucifix vandalized outside of a Brooklyn church and discovered Friday morning is being investigated by the NYPD as a possible hate crime, the Diocese of Brooklyn said. The wooden crucifix displayed at St. Athanasius Roman Catholic Church, located in the Bensonhurst section of Brooklyn, was found face down in the grass next to the school affiliat...

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Barbara liked to tell people she found me in a basement in Brooklyn. Technically, it was a warehouse, but I wasn’t in a position to argue with her. Our first meetings were in 2013, when I was the managing editor of the Brooklyn Rail and she was co-editing the special Ad Reinhardt centennial edition of the publication, which we produced on-site in t...

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The Italian Enclaves Historical Society's founder, Raymond Guarini, has garnered support from FIAO (Federation of Italian American Organizations of Brooklyn, Ltd.) and the local district's councilman, Justin Brannan, to have Dyker Heights' 13th Avenue designated as an official Little Italy historic district. Guarini started a petition on Change.org...

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For Bilena Settepani, food and family go hand in hand. The 25-year-old manages her family’s restaurant and bakery, Settepani, which has locations in New York’s Brooklyn and Harlem neighborhoods. “Settepani, which is first and foremost my last name, means ‘seven breads’ in Italian,” Settepani told In The Know. “My dad always jokes that my first job...

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Design connoisseur Stephen Markos started design platform Superhouse on Instagram at the end of 2019, a few months before the brick-and-mortar abruptly transferred into an online space. From his Brooklyn apartment, he posted about designers he admired and, as of last summer, online fundraisers to benefit anti-racism organizations. Since then, Marko...

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Despite the challenges that this period has imposed on us, something magical is happening in Brooklyn. Starting from last October 2020, Simona Rodano's program known in New York as the Italian Fairy is flying to the Federation of Italian American Organizations (FIAO) in the very modern complex called "Il Centro". An avant-garde building designed a...

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John Carollo grew up in a small town in Sicily before immigrating to Brooklyn at the age of 14. There were no organized sports where he lived, a very small town, but all the boys loved to just kick a ball around together. Upon his arrival in Brooklyn and enrollment in the local High School one year later, he was stunned by the school soccer teams,...

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It appears, considering the row of bright-colored boxes of panettone stacked on holiday-season displays, that the sweet Christmas bread that originated in Italy doesn’t literally have a shelf-life, but by the time the holidays are over, most consumers have had enough panettone to last them until next December. Not at Settepani Bakery in Brooklyn, w...

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