Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church prepared for its annual Giglio Feast with a feast on May 1^st. The tradition of the feast features nearly 100 men under the steel beams of the giglio structure, lifting the 72-foot-tall, four-ton tower. At the top of it is an Italian saint. At the dinner, most of the men have been part of it for decades. “For as long as I can remember,” said John Christopher, Brooklyn resident and longtime lifter.

But in order for the giglio to continue soaring through the Williamsburg skies, extra man power is needed. “At my age, the body, the joints don’t hold up like they used to,” said Achille Pirro, another longtime lifter. For the first time in the one-hundred-plus-year history, the church is holding a recruitment drive. “It’s getting very hard to get the younger generation involved,” said Monsignor Jamie Gigantiello. He is the church’s pastor.