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Until a few years ago there were ten Italian Consulates in the United States, because there was also one in New Jersey, in Newark. It was a very bad choice to close it ten years ago, in my opinion, because the area is very populated with Italians and Italian Americans, and the two Consulates in New York and Philadelphia, which had to share the resp...

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As our families age and we move further away from those family members that left everything behind to build anew in America, I often wonder what will our diaspora look like in 10 years, 20 years, even 50 years. It may sound ridiculous, but it weighs heavy on my mind. I have said in the past, I started down this road of history and heritage in a des...

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A statue of Mother St. Frances Xavier Cabrini, revered for her work educating children, will be brought to where followers of the Italian saint can see it on their way to prayer. The new location for the Mother Cabrini statue will be on the grounds of Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church, the parish that in the 1950s donated the statue to the city for p...

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This weekend I had a moment of simultaneous panic and joy. My book, The Italians of Newark: A History, is now available for pre-order. I’ll be honest, when I saw it online, I felt the blood drain from my face. It has been 16 months since I signed the contract with The History Press, and another eight to twelve months of research before I made my pi...

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Plans to move a statue of a celebrated Italian-American figure from a neglected park have angered Ironbound residents, who turned out at a meeting Monday to voice their concerns about the proposal, which was discussed by City Council earlier this year. The statue of Roman Catholic St. Frances Xavier Cabrini, also known as Mother Cabrini, is in a pa...

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Last week many learned of the plan to move the Mother Cabrini statue in the Ironbound. A significant number of concerned individuals, myself included, wrote emails, made phone calls, posted on social media, and more to bring attention to this issue. While we do not have a definitive answer as to what is happening, we did get a response. Sort of. Co...

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A major retail stretch just of Downtown Newark is officially home to a new eatery as an experienced restaurant group has launched Sugo inside the Springfield Avenue Marketplace. Sugo, which specializes in pizza and Italian food, recently opened inside a storefront at 48 Jones Street. The restaurant occupies 2,100 square feet at the grocery-anchored...

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Two community leaders in Essex County with ties to Newark were recently honored at the county’s annual Italian American Heritage Month celebration. The 2023 event – held last week at the Essex County Martin Luther King, Jr. Justice Building – paid tribute to Sallyanne Floria, a retired Essex County assignment judge, and Ralph Ciallella, a retired E...

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The Feast of St. Gerard. Friday, Oct. 13, 2023 to Monday, Oct. 16, 2023. St. Lucy’s Church, 118 Seventh Avenue, Newark, NJ. In the back of St. Lucy’s Church in Newark is a dim chapel where the carved likeness of Gerard Majello is kept. Throughout most of the year, visitors gather here at the foot of the marble altar to ask for blessings. Last week,...

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Italian feast days have a storied tradition in the Archdiocese of Newark, especially when summertime rolls around. Some feasts are more than a century old, with generations of Italian Americans keeping the tradition alive. The richness and history of these feasts are at the heart of Italian-American faith culture, according to Eric Lavin, the direc...

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