Mangia! But please not here
Little Italy’s San Gennaro festival started yesterday -- and quickly got the evil eye from high-end shopkeepers in tony Nolita.
The hipster couture peddlers along Mulberry Street had tried to stop the 85-year-old festival from extending out of the heart of Little Italy into their trendy, gentrified area, complaining it would kill business.
But after Mayor Bloomberg decided in March to let the beloved festival proceed as usual, the angry boutique owners had to swallow this year’s festival like a bitter sausage and pepper sandwich.
“Nobody has come into the store all day,” complained Erika Schaefer, the assistant manager of the Alibi jewelry store on Mulberry Street, where $3,000 rings sat in stylish cases.
The vendor tents of San Gennaro were set up in the street right outside her store’s door. The sound of booming music and construction noise invaded the shop.
“There was nothing but hammering and sawing since they set up,” she said. “There are ants outside the door. I have to keep the doors closed. There was already trash outside at 11:30 this morning.”
Some fuming fashionistas planned to close their shops for the duration of the festival. Other feared that some of the patrons would come in with their meatball and cannoli-stained hands and soil the shop’s chi chi goods.
“People eat, and then they want to come in and touch anything,” said Nicole Ye, manager of the b.tiff jewelry store. “We have to tell people there is no food allowed in the store.
“It gets pretty dirty outside,” she huffed. “I would rather there wasn’t a booth in front of us.”
The failed fight to reduce the size of the festival -- which runs until Sept. 25 -- got nasty and personal. Italian-American City Council members banded together to protect the event, as some store owners described the festival-goers as “greasy.”
Petrea Davis, the manager of John Fluevog Shoes on Mulberry, even declared in March that San Gennaro “brings to the neighborhood these shady little characters.”
However, she backed off on the insults, saying that she had received online threats after her earlier comments were quoted in the media.
Yesterday, she welcomed her Italian neighbors.
“I appreciate that there’s bocce instead of karaoke here now,” she said.
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