The evening on Mulberry Street was already thickening with the aroma of fried dough and grilled sausage when a knight in faded armor coursed through the crowd in a shopping cart. “Puppet show in the church,” shouted a man pushing the cart. “Marionettes in the church.”

The popular street festival that is the Feast of San Gennaro is a concerted heave every September to celebrate the culture and traditions of Little Italy in Manhattan. Much like the neighborhood, those traditions have been fading for years, but here was this errant knight being conveyed by a couple of locals doing their part to revive a tradition: the Marionettes of Mulberry Street.