I am so excited!! Tonight begins The 113th (?!) annual La Festa Italiana. I wait for this event all summer because… well, zeppoles. Those fried doughy pillows are what dreams are made of. I also really love a good Italian festival! It’s so much fun, and it’s a great time to spend the evenings and weekend with your friends and families. There’s really something for everyone! Food, music, festival games, beer, fried everything! I’m saying goodbye to the healthy diet for a few days…

I went to meet with Nick Grillo and Phil Fusciello, who’ve been the co-chairs of the festival for over two decades, to get the history behind the festival and the Holy Rosary, a Jersey City landmark. Good thing I had my catholic school girl skirt on! #OyVey

What are your names?

Phil Fusciello and Nick Grillo.

What do you do?

Phil: I am the co-chair for marketing, promotion, and vendors for La Festa Italiana.

How long have you been part of La Festa Italiana?

Phil: For the last 24 years. I retired and have always been helping out.

Nick: We became co-chairs round 2002.

Phil: For a while, it was just him and me, and then we added more people. I stepped out for a while, and now I stepped back in.

So this year is the 113^th year?

Phil: Of the feast, yes.

That’s a long time! And here, at the Holy Rosary.

Phil: Well, as part of the Holy Rosary. What really started it 113 years ago is the Novena, which began August 6^th. Novena is a 9-day mass celebration in veneration of the blessed mother. That’s the tradition that came from Italy from a little town called Morrone del Sannio, where my grandparents are from, which is why I’m involved. They started the Dell’assunta society back then, and that was when the first Novena and feast day mass was held. The street festival that we now see followed maybe a year or two later. They always had it – not here, but on Colgate and Second Street. As a kid, that’s where I remember going to La Festa. Then it went into Mary Benson Park. In the 70s, it came here into the street. When I joined 24 years ago and went back to the parish, they called it the Holy Rosary Annual Parish Feast. Nick and I decided we needed to jazz it up, and that’s when La Festa Italiana came in 2002.

Nick: In 2002/2003, we rebranded it to appeal to the new people moving into Jersey City. Why would they go to an Annual Parish Feast? We grew up with it, but not many people know.

What is it? I’m Jewish, so I wouldn’t know.

Nick: Perfect example! To anybody who comes here, they would ask, “What is this?” We tried to not remove it from the church, but make the name more generic.

Phil: When it was Annual Parish Feast, it looked like it was only a church celebration and not a street festival. We used to use the line “Old World Street Festival” before we became La Festa just to get it out there and get that appeal.

How has it grown in the past 20 years?

Phil: Every year, it grows.

Nick: It’s remarkable!

Phil: I’ll meet people and introduce myself as the co-chair for La Festa, and people have said, “Oh good, it’s happening!” We were putting banners up by White Star Bar and moms were excited. People look forward to it, they really anticipate it. If we didn’t have it, I think there’d be a rebellion. I work in the rectory and we get calls all the time starting in May for La Festa. Former parishioners who’ve retired come from Florida every year. We have people who come from California. It also hits the tri-state area, with people coming from the Jersey shore, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania. To former parishioners, this is a 5-night reunion to see old friends, catch up with people, come to mass, have a good time, and eat.

Nick: I’m very good about asking the crowd if they’re having a good time, making sure they ate, what they do/don’t like, or what they want to see just because they’re all new faces. We grew up with it, and even from a business sense, we know where it needs to go.  To get a real grasp from the community as to what they want is really what’s important. What’s interesting is, when I talk to all of these people, they all say how wonderful it is because they never had this growing up. It’s becoming a new tradition for all new Jersey City residents and it’s thriving. It’s mobbed. Every year, we get more and more people. We can gauge by the amount of garbage we go through. Last year, it was 18 ½ tons of refuse. We just have all of these wonderful new families coming in, and most of them are within walking distance. Everyone comes to hang out, eat, drink, listen to music, making new friends. It’s awesome, it really is.

I remember last year, I waited in line for the zeppoles. That stuff is so good! I love that the ladies making it are into it!

Phil: That’s the Italian community!

I heard stories about old Jersey City and how large of an Italian community there used to be. Do you find that the Italian community is smaller than it was back in the day?

Nick: Yeah, it’s dramatically different. We were an event where we used to do our own cooking. We had an army of Italian women who cooked Italian food.

Phil: 24 years ago, when I walked in here, that’s what it was. There were no outside vendors. Everything was done with the parishioners, so you had 50 to 70-year-old ladies making meatballs. Everyone had a role. They even put their own stands together! But they’ve all passed on and children have moved.

Nick: With the gentrification in Jersey City, you see it if you come to church here on Sunday. When you come to church here on Sunday, it’s a young congregation. The old-timers aren’t here anymore, they’ve passed away. We’ve had to make the festival go in that progressive direction because the zeppole crew is already in their mid to late 70s, so now we’re trying to do succession planning to see who will take over next. It’s a big money maker for the church, but is such an art that it’s hard to find somebody.

So all the money that you guys make from La Festa goes to the church?

Phil: Yes.

Nick: It goes to the preservation of the parish.

Phil: Maintenance, enhancements, etc.

Nick: You have a building here that 110 years old and we just put a ton of money into it a couple of years ago. All the money we raise goes to the preservation of the church. If you go see the inside of the church, it looks like it was built yesterday. It’s in pristine condition.

Phil: It’s all welcoming.

What’s new this year as opposed to previous years?

Phil: This year, we have some new vendors. We have a vendor who is a former parishioner in the food industry and he’ll be serving fried specialties.

Anything fried is good.

Phil: Anything fried is going to be a hit! He’s doing sweet and savory fried dough stuffed with various stuffings. We have a seafood truck coming, Polish food from Lucy’s Exchange, authentic Belgian waffles from Waffle It and Co. They’ve come up with a La Festa special, which is a waffle with a cannoli filling. It’s to die for!

It’s also fun for the kids. You have beer, live music.

Phil: We have local businesses, like Radical Wellness with their teas and oils. Gia Gelato will be back with 23 flavors of gelato at La Festa. Delenio’s will be here with Italian specialities.

Bring two bottles of Tums!

Nick: Right! And you could come every night and have something different to eat.

Phil: We have Filipino barbecue, and we also added a Colombian food vendor. We have Callahan’s hot dogs, which is big in Bergen County.

Very cool. So do you guys prepare for this all year?

Phil: Yes! I’m making notes now for 2017.

Nick: And during the event, we’ll say to each other, “We can do this next year, we should do that next year.” Sometimes you don’t get a grasp of what changes you need to make until you actually see what’s going on. It’s very difficult laying this out because of the restrictions we have with the streets and vendors we have. We often overflow into the next block and it’s always an issue of splitting the overflow in half, putting them all in one side, etc. We tried different things last year and, again, some things didn’t work and others did. We just made notes for the next year. We want to keep everybody happy and wanting to come back every year. Most of our vendors are repeat vendors, and we push to have the local businesses a part of it because it’s good for them.

So you guys have obviously been in Jersey City for a very long time. How do you guys feel its changed in the past few years?

Phil: It’s growing younger. Downtown is growing, but with younger families coming in for short periods of time. We see it. They meet here or come here together as a couple, get married here, have a baby, and they may leave when the baby’s ready to go to school. Some do stay. It’s exciting that there’s new energy, and they’re accepting of the traditions that we have. It’s cool.

Nick: Phil came back 24 years ago, and I have been around here since I was a kid. I’ve watched the old crowd dwindle away, and a lot of them were people I grew up with. I watched them fizzle out and it was interesting to watch that fizzle happen, and then around 2000 is when you start to notice the change of the demographics at La Festa and even church on Sundays. Everyone would ask, “Who’s that person?” Now to see all of them here and replace those old faces with all these young faces, it’s great. It’s great to see them enjoy what I enjoyed growing up in this church and having memories here. That’s what it’s about. They’ll remember the festival for the rest of their lives. It’s wonderful.

Do you guys have a favorite Jersey City hangout spot?

Nick: Liberty House, Battello’s, Light Horse. I’m a restaurant guy, so I’m all over the place. Renato’s is the hidden secret up on Central Ave.

Phil: And Laico’s!

Nick: There’s a lot of hidden gems in this city.

Anything else you’d like people to know about La Festa?

Phil: Just come and have a good time! Come more than once. Every night, there’ll be something new to eat.

 

You can check out more details about La Festa Italiana 2016 here or visit their Facebook event page.