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I joined my Teggianesi friends in Williamsburg, Brooklyn Sunday afternoon (May 28th) to celebrate the Grand Feast of their beloved patron, San Cono da Teggiano. Mass was celebrated in Italian by Fr. Vincenzo Chirichella in Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church, which is currently under renovation. It was great to see members of the Sacred Military Consta...

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Brooklyn’s most meteoric restaurant success in the last decade was Roberta’s. Starting out as a modest pizzeria with a wood-burning oven in an obscure corner of Bushwick, it swelled into an empire. Who can fault other rustic Naples-style pizzerias for trying to duplicate that success? Since Roberta’s founding in 2008, copycats have appeared in gent...

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This is the interview #160 I publish with We the Italians. Looking back, I am astonished and proud and honored when I understand how great, committed and excellent are the people that gave me the privilege to share with me and our readers their stories, their pride of being Italian, their knowledge about 159 different point of view from which anali...

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Don't touch that historic church. At a hearing Tuesday in state Supreme Court in Brooklyn, Justice Ellen Spodek extended a temporary restraining order that halts the demolition of Our Lady of Loreto in the Ocean Hill section of Brownsville. Justice Spodek will be issuing a decision in the next couple weeks concerning the suit, which was filed in la...

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This innovative bar is the place for avocado everything: smoothies, salads and, yes, toast. Francesco Brachetti, a native of Florence, Italy, fell for avocados while living in Mexico. “They’re tasty and healthy, and I ate them every day,” he said. “We didn’t have them in Italy.” He persuaded a cousin, the chef Alberto Gramini, also from Florence, a...

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Kairos Italy Theater (KIT), the preeminent Italian theater company in New York, kicked off the 5th annual IN SCENA! ITALIAN THEATER FESTIVAL NY at the Cherry Lane Theatre in Manhattan on May 1st. The opening celebrated Award Winning playwright Mario Fratti with friends and admirers. With daily events in venues all around the city, the festival is c...

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Anne L. Campana, 94, a proud American of Italian descent and a native to Williamsburg, died Friday, April 28, 2017. She was preceded in death by her husband, Vincent Campana Sr.; and sons, Dr. Robert A. Campana and Ronald A. Campana; two brothers, Anthony and John Zullo; and sister and brother-in-law, Marie and Edward Welch. She is survived by her...

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Saturday evening I met up with my fellow Knights of the Sacred Military Constantinian Order of Saint George at Saint Francis of Paola Church (219 Conselyea St.) in Williamsburg, Brooklyn for the Traditional Solemn High Mass in honor of San Francesco di Paola, patron saint of Calabria and the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. Starting from the Madonna de...

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The Battle of Brooklyn circa 2017 is in Brownsville. It has arrived in the form of a showdown between a faith-based group determined to level a 109-year-old church to erect affordable housing and residents who want to preserve their neighborhood’s patrimony while providing a hub for Brownsville culture. Brooklyn Supreme Court Judge Bernard Graham i...

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Next week Brooklyn based Italian Specialties Group LLC will start shipping newly labeled jars of its Uncle Steve’s tomato sauce to retailers and online merchandisers nationwide.  Actor Steve Schirripa’s signature tomato sauce will now have his photo on each jar.  “When we started this company I wanted to create the best tasting, cleanest products....

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