PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Thousands braved the sweltering heat over the weekend to attend the South 9th Street Italian Market Festival. The popular South Philly event made its return following a pandemic-imposed hiatus.
The star of the Italian Market festival is always the food, with pasta, pizza, meatballs sausage, cannolis and a whole lot more.
Besides the food, the traditional Procession of Saints was a Sunday highlight. Statues of about a dozen saints were rolled from Saint Mary’s Church through the Italian Market, then on to Saint Paul's Church.
City Councilman Mark Squilla led the procession.
"It's so diverse here and everybody is just enjoying the old time Italian traditions with the saints coming down the street," he said, "and everybody can enjoy people's culture."
The procession has been a South Philadelphia tradition for at least a century. "Some of the statues are really old," said festival producer Michelle Gambino.
"In fact, this year, one of the statues crumbled and we had to replace it with a new statue."
Members of the crowd gave money to the saints' attendants as they passed by, with donations going to the churches.
Related
"This is immense because this is really reintroducing customers, patrons, friends, family to the South 9th Street Italian Market shopping district," Gambino said.
"And that's why it was great to finally have our big open house kind of thing, like a big party."
Julia Whiley lives in the neighborhood, and was excited to see the festival return. "It's really great to see all energy back on the street again," she said. "We missed it over the past two years."
And many came out to support merchants who struggled over the past 2 1/2 years.
"We will buy whatever we can, and eat whatever we can," said Rose Mary, "as this mango is all over my face."
Those merchants were glad to see the large turnout, and hope many festivalgoers will be back to shop in the district all year-round.
Want more things to do in Philly? Check out the Jawncast.