Feast of St. Anthony of Padua, 1924, as the procession moves westward on East 106th Street, from First to Second Avenue. The Feast of Saint Anthony of Padua was a major street festival for the once thriving Italian community of Harlem. Tracing its origins to the town of Brusciano, outside Napoli, the Feast and parade were held on Labor Day Weekend, beginning in 1918. This area was the first neighborhood known as "Little Italy."

For Landmark East Harlem's Back to School Series feature, we are exploring the beautiful historic schools that have educated generations of East Harlem children. The schools highlighted in this tour were all built before 1950. Most of them were built in the first few decades of the 20th century, with the majority still in use today - some as schools, while others have been converted to community resource centers and housing. Sadly, some of these architectural gems have not survived the test of time and changes in development patterns.

The Feast of Saint Anthony of Padua, 1928.

The Feast of Saint Anthony of Padua, 1931.

Men carry the "giglio" tower across First Avenue on 106th Street during the Feast of Saint Anthony of Padua, 1927. Beginning in the late 19th century, Italians, particularly from Southern Italy and Sicily, began to settle in East Harlem. By the 1930 census, 81% of the neighborhood claimed first or second-generation Italian heritage. In 2000, after a 29-year break, the "dance of the giglio" returned to East Harlem, where it continues to happen on the second Sunday of August each year.

A branch of "Pro. Ex. Bank" on the west side of First Avenue between 103rd and 104th Streets, across from the site of the East River Houses, as yet unbuilt in April 1940. Today, the bank branch building houses the East Ward Missionary Baptist Church.

By Susan Smith-Peter Using crutches because of an early bout with meningitis, Percy Loomis Sperr managed to photograph nearly all of New York City from the 1920s to the 1940s. Sperr sought to document and preserve the city as fully as possible. He was interested in telling the story of New York through the lives and environments of everyday people. This work brought him into contact with important photographers such as Berenice Abbott and, to a lesser extent, Walker Evans. And his work has deeply shaped our vision of this New York City during the Jazz Age and Depression-era. Among other things, it helped set design for such movies as The Godfather and The Great Gatsby (1974) and serves as the foundation for such popular apps as OldNYC and Urban Archive. Yet the artist himself remains little known. This blog sets out to establish the basic facts of his life, and suggests lines of possible research, using his previously unanalyzed writings and undigitized albums as well as his better-known works. Born on December 27, 1899, Sperr attended Oberlin College, where he served as the associate editor of the Annual and the managing editor of the Review. In 1916, a list of graduates places him in Columbus, Ohio, care of the Stoneman Press. As he told the Newark Sunday News in 1963, the year before his death, “the first of my sins was to teach in a small private school in California. I taught the ABCs, trigonometry and everything in between. The school closed while I was on vacation, so I wandered around in printing, freelance writing and photography.” His draft card for World War One shows that he was already living in New York in 1917, at 2887 Bailey Avenue in the Bronx. It also noted that his right leg was permanently paralyzed and that he was a printer at the Lumitone Art Company. His World War Two draft card was even blunter, simply stating, “lame.” He moved to Staten Island in 1924, during which time he was “principally a freelance writer, doing articles largely for the Sunday magazine sections of newspapers. Many of these articles concern\[ed] aspects of the New York Public Library.”

At left is the northwest corner of First Avenue and 108th Street, with storage tanks of the Consolidated Gas Co. visible between 110th and 111th Streets, in the background. Photographer P.L. Sperr notes "wine equipment" on the sidewalk in front of what was then 2060 First Avenue, in the foreground. Today, Public School 146 and post-war housing developments occupy the east side of First Avenue.

East Harlem, the neighborhood covering a broad swath of Upper Manhattan north of 96th Street and East of Fifth Avenue, has historically been known for its prominent populations: in the early 20th century, Italian Harlem; the Latino community of Spanish Harlem in later years. These photo's from the New York Public Library's Milstein Division provide a snapshot of daily life uptown, from street scenes to Feast Day parades.

The sidewalk on the west side of First Avenue, below 108th Street, outside the Pizzeria Sorrentina Spaghetti House, 1934. Photographer P.L. Sperr notes that the building across 108th Street is "fairly new, since 1925." By 1934, the Italian population of East Harlem exceeded 100,000. In the background, Consolidated Gas Co. storage tanks between 110th and 11th Streets.

The Feast of Saint Anthony of Padua, 1929.