Front of the original church, now the entrance to the rectory.
The Church of the Most Precious Blood is a Roman Catholic Church located on Mulberry Street between Hester and Canal, though the current entrance is located at 113 Baxter. It was established in 1888, at a time when Italian immigrants in the area were forced to attend mass in the basements of Irish churches such as the Church of the Transfiguration and St. Patrick Cathedral. The church was closed in 1893 when the Scalabrinian Brothers who constructed the church could no longer afford to maintain it; they had borrowed more than the community could afford. However, the Irish-American church leadership was blamed as it was expected the leadership would have loaned money to stop the foreclosure. The church was eventually put under the care of the Franciscans of the Immaculate Conception Province, who bore most of the financial burden of maintaining the church themselves. As most of the parishioners were from Naples and the surrounding areas, the Feast of San Gennaro because a popular celebration; today, the church is the site of the national shrine of San Gennaro.
Banca Stabile, founded by Francesco Rosario Stabile, was a bank that operated from 1885 to 1932 from 189 Grand Street. It provided full financial services for the Italian immigrants, and it also offered telegraph services, booking steamship passage, import and export services, a notary public, and a post office. It was the “cornerstone of the financial community and the social community.” The building is now addressed 155 Mulberry and has housed the Italian American Museum since 2008.
Figli d’Italia, the Sons of Italy, was first founded on Grand Street on June 22, 1905. Later renamed L’Ordine Figli d’Italia in Amercia, the fraternal organization aimed to help Italian men and women and preserve Italian traditions even as the people became Americanized.
