...te piace 'o presepio? (i.e. do you like the crib? In Neapolitan dialect)

San Gregorio Armeno, unless you're keen on history of theology, immediately reminds us a street of Naples Old town centre, famous worldwide as the Street of the cribs, located between "Spaccanapoli" and Via dei Tribunali.
As a matter of fact in San Gregorio Armeno Street there are the best craftsmen’s workshops specialized in the creation of little statues for cribs. They are more or less well-known and famous workshops, but all of them are characterized  by being very well-stocked of materials to make cribs. The displayed goods are a whirl of colours that enchant  the visitor who walks along this street for the first time.

In San Gregorio Armeno is Christmas practically all year round; this street is  full of tourists coming from all over the world, and these particular clay handmade articles trade, never stops. These handmade articles often are real works of art made by master sculptors. In the tradition of Neapolitan families, cribs are really deep-rooted. How can we forget the crib praise in the comedy by Eduardo de Filippo "Natale in casa Cupiello"; but the craftsmen’s workshops in Via San Gregorio Armeno are not only addressed to the Neapolitans who visit them every year, to increase the population of their cribs, but also to collectors of these works, which are often made using valuable materials and whose price easily becomes very expensive.

The most precious works are often inspired by the scenes of the Cuciniello crab, preserved at the San Martino Museum in Naples, made in 1879. The Cuciniello crab offers, besides the religious representation, a cross-section of Naples popular everyday life in the XIX century.

Among the stalls or inside the shops, you can not only find the “classic” pieces of this representation of the nativity, like the holy family, the ox and the donkey, the Magi on foot or on the back of the dromedary or the classical shepherds. As a matter of fact it is custom in the last few years to propose animated characters, created using mechanisms that simulate the movement. Therefore you can admire the smith beating on the anvil or the baker that puts loaves into the oven and takes them out of it.
Another custom, certainly colourful, but not so consistent with the tradition of the crab, is the one of making and putting up for sale , "shepherds" resembling to famous contemporary personalities. The first one was for sure Diego Armando Maradona (mythical and unique), preceded perhaps only by San Gennaro in the ranking in the heart of the Neapolitans.

They were then made little statues looking like the Pope, judge Di Pietro, Berlusconi and many other political or TV personalities. Beyond these commercial speculations, that anyway add a lively and cheerful note to the atmosphere you breathe in San Gregorio Armeno Street, what really strikes the tourist is that in this place the art of making works of art out of the clay, has been handed on from father to son for decades.
San Gregorio Armeno Street is easily reachable; it is as a matter of fact in perpendicular position between the Decumano Maggiore and the Decumano Inferiore. Therefore you just have to follow the road markings to cover the two Decumani to easily cross it. For those who want to reach San Gregorio Armeno by underground, line 1, the closest stop is the one of Piazza Dante, from there you can walk towards Port'Alba and crossing San Sebastiano Street, famous to be full of musical instruments shops, reach Benedetto Croce Street. Once you reach the Church of Santa Chiara go on in the opposite direction to Piazza del Gesù Nuovo, you will find San Gregorio Armeno Street.