If you've been in Belmont long enough, you might still expect a Friday or Saturday night when Arthur Avenue closes to cars and the block turns into an open-air dining room. That program existed. It was called Piazza di Belmont, the Belmont Business Improvement District launched it in the summer of 2020 with help from traffic engineer Sam Schwartz, and for a couple of years it closed Arthur Avenue to vehicles between East 188th Street and Crescent Avenue on weekend evenings, with more than 25 restaurants setting up tables in the street. A local events tracker that keeps close tabs on Bronx festivals now lists it as discontinued as of 2023. Restaurants still put chairs on the sidewalk. The street itself stays open to cars every weekend now.
Which is exactly why Ferragosto, on Sunday, September 13, 2026, is not a smaller echo of something that already happens most weekends. It is the one afternoon a year the BID closes a stretch of Arthur Avenue outright, and the footprint runs bigger than anything Piazza di Belmont ever touched.
What Actually Closes on September 13
Ferragosto runs from noon to 6 p.m., rain or shine, with Arthur Avenue closed to vehicles from East 187th Street to Crescent Avenue. The entertainment stage sits on East 186th Street between Arthur and Hughes Avenue, a cross street the old Piazza program never closed at all. If you're used to Arthur Avenue staying open to cars every day except during that one now-discontinued dining pilot, block off the whole afternoon.
Ferragosto 2026: Sunday, September 13, noon to 6 p.m., rain or shine. Arthur Avenue closed from East 187th Street to Crescent Avenue. Stage on East 186th Street between Arthur and Hughes.
The festival itself is not new. It has run in Belmont for more than 25 years, and the concept goes back much further than that. Ferragosto traces to an ancient Roman harvest festival dating to 18 B.C., created in honor of the emperor Caesar Augustus, which is an odd bit of trivia to carry around a neighborhood built by Southern Italian immigrants who originally came to cut stone for the Botanical Garden, the Bronx Zoo, and Fordham University.
Then and Now, Side by Side
| Piazza di Belmont (2020–2022) | Ferragosto (Sept 13, 2026) | |
|---|---|---|
| Boundary | East 188th St to Crescent Ave | East 187th St to Crescent Ave |
| Frequency | Weekend evenings, spring through fall | One Sunday, once a year |
| Status | Discontinued by 2023 | Running more than 25 years |
| Extra footprint | None | Stage on East 186th St (Arthur to Hughes) |
The practical takeaway: there is no longer a standing weekly closure to compare Ferragosto against. This Sunday's footprint, running a full block further north and swallowing a cross street, is simply the largest vehicle closure Arthur Avenue sees all year.
Where Your Car Actually Goes This Year
On an ordinary weekend, on-street parking along Arthur Avenue is tight but findable, and most residents know the pay stations by heart. That option disappears inside the festival footprint on the 13th. The Belmont BID lists four alternatives for the day:
- Fordham University's lot at 685 East Fordham Road, $10, with a free shuttle running 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.
- The Belmont Municipal Parking Field at 2365 Hoffman Street
- SBH Health System's lot at 4422 Third Avenue, entered from Quarry Road
- Fordham Plaza Garage at 450 East 189th Street
If you live inside the closure zone and don't need to go anywhere, none of this matters. If you're hosting out-of-town family who plan to drive in for the afternoon, tell them about the Fordham University shuttle before they circle Hughes Avenue looking for a spot that won't exist.
What's Actually Happening on the Street
This year's lineup keeps the festival's harvest theme literal: pasta-making demonstrations, cheese-pulling, a cannoli-eating contest, grape stomping, and an Italian car show lined up along the closed stretch of Arthur Avenue. The sponsor list reads like a map of the neighborhood's institutional anchors: Fordham University, the New York Botanical Garden, the Bronx Zoo, SBH Health System, and Con Edison, alongside the BID itself and Little Italy in the Bronx.
Twelve Years on the Same Microphone
The person keeping the day moving is Nick Vero, a Bronx native who has served as master of ceremonies for twelve Ferragosto festivals. Before that, he worked for the City of New York as a Deputy Chief for the Department of Sanitation, and he served as a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Air Force during Operation Iraqi Freedom. Between musical acts, he tells stories about growing up in the Bronx and sings a mix of American and Italian standards, which is part of why longtime attendees show up expecting a specific kind of afternoon rather than a generic street fair.
He shares the bill with Jessa V Salerno, a New York City-based singer whose training spans opera, jazz, and Italian music, and the band RockSteady, whose members trace their own family lines through Ellis Island to Arthur Avenue itself. Bob Bisaccia, who has run a construction and zoning consulting firm for more than 50 years, rounds out the performer list, a reminder that this is still a neighborhood event run by neighborhood people rather than an imported production.
If You're Skipping It
Not everyone in Belmont wants to spend a September Sunday in a crowd, and that's a reasonable choice. The closure only affects vehicles and the specific blocks named above. Sidewalk businesses inside and outside the footprint keep running, including the Arthur Avenue Retail Market, an indoor market that has operated just south of East 186th Street since 1940, and bakeries like DeLillo Pastry Shop, which has been baking the same recipes since 1925, and Artuso Pastry, more than 60 years into the business. None of them need the street closed to do what they do.
If you want a quieter version of the neighborhood that day, the blocks one street off Arthur, like Hughes Avenue itself, stay open to cars and foot traffic runs lighter. For a longer view of what's worth eating on Arthur Avenue on an ordinary week, not a festival week, our guide to everyday dining in the Bronx covers the spots worth a regular visit. And if you're curious what Belmont and the wider Bronx actually feel like to live in day to day, past the festival calendar, that's a longer conversation than one Sunday can answer.
Either way, mark the date correctly this year. The footprint is bigger than the dining pilot some residents still remember, and the cross street you might be used to cutting through won't be open on September 13.
Have questions about what living in a neighborhood like Belmont actually looks like week to week, not just on festival days? Legacy Group knows these blocks the way residents do. Reach out and find your piece of the Bronx.
