After a one-year hiatus from the Waterfront, the Hoboken Italian Festival is slated to return this fall. Società Madonna Dei Martiri teased the information on their social media Thursday morning, indicating that the festival had been scheduled for the weekend of September 10. Last year saw the procession of the Madonna through the streets of Hoboken, but the celebration on the Waterfront was cancelled over COVID concerns.

The City of Hoboken has a long history and shared tradition with the Town of Molfetta, Italy, and many of Hoboken’s Italian immigrants have maintained a strong connection to Molfetta. In the late 1800’s and continuing into the 1900’s, as many people emigrated from southern Italy to the United States, the Molfettese people found Hoboken to be similar to Molfetta in many ways. Both were maritime communities with shipping as the largest industry.