This evening, the statue of the Madonna del Soccorso moves from the Fisherman's Club toward Christopher Columbus Waterfront Park for the Blessing of the Fishing Waters, the opening ceremony of a tradition that has run every August since 1910. If you've lived in the North End through even one summer, you already know to expect it. What you might not know is that today's feast and the one that closes the season over Labor Day weekend do not even share a street.
Ask most North End residents to describe feast season and you'll get a shrug and something like "it's basically Hanover Street until Labor Day." That's close enough to be dangerous. Six separate societies run six separate feasts between late July and late August, and only half of them touch Hanover Street at all. The two biggest weekends of the summer happen on entirely different blocks. Knowing which grid your address sits on tells you more about your August than the phrase "feast season" ever will.
Six Feasts, Not One Blur
The 2026 lineup runs like this. The Feast of Saint Joseph opens the season July 24 to 26, marking its 100th year. St. Agrippina di Mineo follows July 30 through August 2. Madonna Della Cava, brought here by immigrants from Pietraperzia, Sicily, runs its 106th edition August 7 to 9. The Fisherman's Feast, the oldest of the six and the one opening today, runs August 13 to 16 in its 116th year. San Gennaro takes over August 21 to 23. Saint Anthony's Feast, still described by National Geographic decades ago as the "Feast of all Feasts," closes the season August 27 to 30 in its 107th year.
| Feast | 2026 Dates | Anniversary | Footprint |
|---|---|---|---|
| Feast of Saint Joseph | Jul 24–26 | 100th | Hanover Street |
| St. Agrippina di Mineo | Jul 30–Aug 2 | — | Hanover & Battery |
| Madonna Della Cava | Aug 7–9 | 106th | Hanover & Battery |
| Fisherman's Feast | Aug 13–16 | 116th | North, Fleet, Lewis (near North Square) |
| San Gennaro | Aug 21–23 | — | Paul Revere Mall, no street closure |
| Saint Anthony's Feast | Aug 27–30 | 107th | Endicott & Thacher |
The Footprint Is the Real Story
Three of the six feasts, Saint Joseph's, St. Agrippina, and Madonna Della Cava, close Hanover Street outright, with parking restricted on both sides from Charter Street down to Commercial and along Battery Street as well, according to the city's own traffic advisories. If your building faces Hanover or sits on Battery, that's three separate weekends of restrictions before Labor Day, spaced roughly every ten days starting in late July.
San Gennaro breaks that pattern without breaking the calendar. It sets up at Paul Revere Mall, the shaded plaza residents call the Prado, using the green space itself rather than closing the street around it. Hanover stays open. It's the closest thing to a bye week the season allows.
The Fisherman's Feast breaks the pattern a second time, in the opposite direction. It claims North, Fleet, and Lewis streets near North Square, a waterfront-facing footprint that barely touches Hanover. Live closer to the harbor than to the interior of the neighborhood and this is your one big weekend: four days, then quiet.
Saint Anthony's Feast breaks it a third way. Its footprint runs through Endicott and Thacher streets, on the Government Center side of the neighborhood, nowhere near Hanover or the waterfront edge. Three footprints, not two, once all six feasts are counted. Whichever one sits closest to your address explains your August better than any single word for the season.
This Weekend's Rules
Today's feast runs under posted 2026 rules that are stricter than a typical block party. Every entrance has a security checkpoint, and backpacks and open containers are barred outright, so anyone walking over from the Financial District with a work bag should plan to drop it first. Most vendors take cash only.
The city's traffic advisory restricts parking on both sides of Lewis Street from Moon to Commercial, Fleet Street from Hanover to Commercial, and North Street from North Square to Clark, along with Fulton, Clark, and Sun Court streets, running from Wednesday setup through Sunday's close. This year's advisories also included a suspension of Green Line service through downtown for the length of the festival, according to reporting on the feast's opening day, which pushes the practical route onto the Orange Line to Haymarket or State, or the Blue Line to Aquarium or Government Center. Neither touches the closed segment, and both land within a short walk of North Square.
Sunday closes with the Flight of the Angel, the feast's marquee moment. Arrive well before evening if you want a clear view from anywhere near the water.
The Closer
Two weeks later, the season's biggest weekend takes over a completely different set of blocks. Saint Anthony's Feast runs its 107th year August 27 to 30, and Sunday's Grand Procession is a ten-hour event, the statue carried by rotating teams of eight men from the Outdoor Chapel on Endicott Street through the neighborhood into the evening, accompanied over the weekend by seven marching bands, from the North Star Drum & Bugle Corps to the Salem High School Marching Band. The Culinary Pavilion sits at the corner of Thacher and Endicott for the full four days.
Several restaurants operate inside the closed footprint itself, including Pizzeria Regina, Massimino's Cucina Italiana, Filippo Ristorante, and Ducali, which means a dinner reservation that weekend comes with a soundtrack whether you asked for one or not. Outside the footprint, Modern Pastry on Hanover and the 24-hour, family-run Bova's Bakery handle the overflow for anyone who wants a cannoli without the crowd.
San Gennaro's Different Address
San Gennaro is the one weekend that doesn't ask residents to plan around a closed grid. The three-day event runs August 21 to 23 at Paul Revere Mall, the plaza on Hanover Street that hosts an outdoor Mass and a procession without shutting down the surrounding blocks the way the other five feasts do.
Six Societies, One Neighborhood
Every feast on this list is run by a nonprofit society tied to the same wave of Italian immigration, the Fisherman's Club dating to 1910, the Saint Anthony and Saint Lucy Societies to 1919. These aren't tourist events dressed up for visitors. They're neighborhood institutions that happen to spill into the street, and the table above is really a map of which block belongs to which society for four days at a time.
If you've lived through a few of these Augusts, you already have your own workaround, the grocery run timed around the procession, the dinner reservation booked for the quiet side of the footprint. If this is your first full feast season here, the table is the fastest way to sort which weekends are yours to plan around and which ones you can mostly ignore.
Zander Realty Group tracks calendars like this one because the small stuff, which block gets loud and when, is part of what it actually feels like to own a home here. If you're weighing a move within the North End or anywhere else in Boston, Get an Estimate from our team and we'll walk you through what a specific address means for your summer, not just your search results.
