THE OUR LADY OF MOUNT CARMEL FEAST, a beloved annual Italian neighborhood tradition, begins on July 8. However, this festival offers more than just food vendors with specialties like pork braciole, cannoli and zeppole. There is a dramatic religious element rooted deep in the Catholic immigrants who brought their faith to northern Brooklyn in 1887.
Woven into the festival are faith-based elements connected to the Shrine Church of Our Lady of Mount Carmel: this patron saint’s July 16 feast day; the story of San Paulinus being returned from captivity, and the four-ton, 80-foot-tall wooden Giglio tower, which a corps of men lift and carry around the neighborhood.
