The tournament made its triumphant return Aug. 14 and Aug. 28 at Dyker Beach Park after a two-year hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The tournament made its triumphant return Aug. 14 and Aug. 28 at Dyker Beach Park after a two-year hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
An estimated 35,000 participants marched past St. Patrick’s Cathedral where many stopped to be greeted and have their pictures taken with Cardinal Timothy Dolan and Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio, including actor Chazz Palminteri, Police Commissioner Dermot Shea, and New York Gov. Kathy Hochul.
After last year’s virtual Columbus Day observance, this year’s event returned as an in-person celebration of faith and Italian-American heritage in New York City. Columbus Day 2021 began with a bilingual Mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral on Monday morning.
Weeks after protesters toppled a statue of Christopher Columbus and threw it into Baltimore’s Inner Harbor, members of the city’s Italian American community are developing a plan to reproduce the marble monument so it can be displayed in a more secure location.
Congressman Pete King joins other Italian-American leaders in support of erecting a New York City statue in honor of Mother Cabrini.
The cause is personal for Msgr. Cassato. One night in 1953, David Cassato, then 5 years old, was headed home from his grandparents’ house. He turned to his father and asked about a photo he had seen. That night, he first heard about Mother Cabrini, who had helped Msgr. Cassato’s grandparents when they came from Sicily to the Lower East Side of Manhattan on 1910 with nothing.