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I nestled my right shoulder beneath an aluminum beam.

A middle-aged man, dressed in slacks, a collared shirt and a flat cap , shot his cane toward the sky and shouted to lift in an Italian dialect . It was time to plant that beam into the pit of my shoulder and help the dozens of men alongside me heave the object that weighs thousands of pounds several inches into the air to carry it down the block.

In the middle of a street in Williamsburg, on a Sunday afternoon in July, I suddenly felt the weight of tradition resting very heavily on my shoulder.

Each year for two weeks in this once predominantly Italian enclave, the Feast of Our Lady Mount Carmel and San Paolino di Nola, consumes the streets of the rapidly gentrifying Brooklyn neighborhood that is now better known for its hipster community.