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."

1950 Third Avenue, with jewelry dealer at the corner of 107th Street visible in the foreground.

232 East 113th Street William Schickel & Co. 1886 Though it was built when East Harlem was largely rural, Our Lady Queen of Angels is located on a hidden cul-de-sac within NYCHA’s Jefferson Houses. The charming neo-Romanesque structure, flanked on either side by a convent and rectory, was constructed at the request of New York Archbishop Corrigan for East Harlem’s German immigrant population. It is known for its association with Father Bonaventure Frey, co-founder of the Capuchin Franciscan Catholic Order in the United States. Frey, an important figure in the Catholic Church, was given the task of building the church and its congregation, acting as Superior in the church’s infancy. Due to a lack of priests and declining attendance, and despite opposition from parishioners and elected officials, the Archdiocese closed dozens of churches in the region, including this one, in 2007. Its school remains open, but despite popular support for preservation, the future of the church itself is uncertain.

Public School 172 on East 108th Street, 1920. Originally built as P.S. 172 in 1889, the building became condos in 1987.

The Feast of Saint Anthony of Padua, 1928.

The northwest corner of Third Avenue and 109th Street, 1912. Storefront signage includes "John Armstrong Real Estate"; "Conservatory of Music," offering lessons in piano, violin, mandolin, guitar, and bass; and "B. Rosenfeld Diamonds, Watches, and Jewelry."

Aguilar Branch, NYPL, 1928. The Aguilar Free Library was a library structure built between 1898 and 1899 in an Art Nouveau style by the architecture firm Herts & Tallant. The firm was well-known for their work on theaters. Largely funded through the philanthropic support of Grace Aguilar, a popular British novelist and essayist of Sephardic Jewish descent, the Free Library merged with NYPL in 1903. In 1904 the same architecture firm extensively renovated (and nearly tripled in size) the original building. Funded by the Carnegie bequest the new library had an exaggerated classical style with two massive columns flanking the three-story facade. This feature and the iron and glass structure that fills in most of the rest of the facade, this branch is distinctive among the Carnegie libraries.

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.”

Engine 53, undated photo. This fire station was designed by the firm of Napoleon LeBrun & Sons, which served the as architects for the Fire Department from 1879 to 1895. During this time, the firm designed more than 40 buildings that defined the department’s architectural presence in the city. This Queen Anne/Romanesque Revival style structure, completed in 1884, is considered a fine example of their work. The fire station and its neighboring police station were both decommissioned in 1974. Today the former firehouse is occupied by the Manhattan Neighborhood Network, a local public access cable network.

Three penitent women march barefoot, opposite 2131 First Avenue, as part of the Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel Parade, July 1927.

Frame houses on the south side of East 109th Street, east of Second Avenue, 1934. The sign visible on the top floor reads "School of Music."

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/El Barrio is home to a great number of murals that build on a long tradition in Latin American art, wherein residents may express themselves and tell their stories. Protecting these significant cultural symbols has become a great challenge, but an important endeavor, in a rapidly changing neighborhood. East 107th Street between Lexington and Third Avenues Natalie del Villar, Marthalicia Matarrita and Xen Medina 2015 The original mural on this site paid tribute to two Puerto Rican political prisoners, Oscar López Rivera and Avelino Gonzalez Claudio. The project was conceived in 2010 by members of the National Boricua Human Rights Network along with local residents. The badly weathered and vandalized mural was re-imagined in 2015 by local artists commissioned by East Harlem Preservation, Inc., with support from the Historic Districts Council. Since Avelino Gonzalez Claudio was released in February 2013, the artists re-focused the mural on Oscar López Rivera, the last Puerto Rican political prisoner in the U.S. who is now 73 years old and has spent 35 years in prison. Because he often speaks about his desire to return to his homeland to walk along the seashore, the artists incorporated his wish into the design. Watch East Harlem Preservation's video on the creation of the mural \*image Photo courtesy Marina Ortiz, East Harlem Preservation, Inc.

Streetcar traffic on Lexington Avenue, north of East 109th Street, April 23, 1914. In the foreground, sidewalk grating above the IRT Lexington Avenue Line is visible. The IRT line would open four years later, in 1918.

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.

St. Ann's Roman Catholic Church on East 110th Street, 1930. Designed and built by Nicholas Serracino in 1911, in the year 1913 more than 1000 babies were baptized in this church.

U.S. post Office, Station U, ca. 1933.

Our Lady Queen of Angels Church 232 East 113th Street Designed by William Schickel & Co. 1886 Though it was built when East Harlem was largely rural, Our Lady Queen of Angels is located on a hidden cul-de-sac within NYCHA’s Jefferson Houses. The charming neo-Romanesque structure, flanked on either side by a convent and rectory, was constructed at the request of New York Archbishop Corrigan for East Harlem’s German immigrant population. It is known for its association with Father Bonaventure Frey, co-founder of the Capuchin Franciscan Catholic Order in the United States. Frey, an important figure in the Catholic Church, was given the task of building the church and its congregation, acting as Superior in the church’s infancy. Due to a lack of priests and declining attendance, and despite opposition from parishioners and elected officials, the Archdiocese closed dozens of churches in the region, including this one, in 2007. Its school remains open, but despite popular support for preservation, the future of the church itself is uncertain.