New ‘Arrested Development’ Episodes Aren’t Enough for Some Fans

AUSTIN, Tex. â€" For years after the cult series “Arrested Development” went off the air, the question was whether a movie about the demented Bluth family would follow. Now that the show, which ended in 2006, is getting new life with 14 more episodes on Netflix this spring, that was still the question of the hour at a South by Southwest festival Q&A session with Mitch Hurwitz, the show’s creator, and two of its stars, Will Arnett and Jeffrey Tambor.

After joking about frozen banana stands (crucial to the Bluth empire) and giving a shoutout to Maria Bamford (she plays “a hilarious mess,” in Mr. Hurwitz’s words), the three talked about fans’ desire for a movie.

“People are already mad,” Mr. Arnett said, “and they haven’t even seen this.” He was referring to the new episodes, which will update viewers on each of the Bluths, serving as a kind of Act 1 of a larger story that coud potentially be told on the big screen.

“What we don’t have is a movie deal, Mr. Hurwitz said, possibly because, as he noted, he hasn’t written a screenplay or pitched the idea to movie executives.

In TV, he said, he didn’t necessarily have to show scripts to anyone beforehand and he preferred it that way. He didn’t even like to hold table reads with the “Arrested Development” cast. “Maybe it’s cowardice on my part but when it comes to material getting judged, I’d rather not go through that phase.”

John Doyle to Direct a London Revival of ‘The Color Purple’

Sara Krulwich/The New York Times John Doyle

John Doyle, who received a Tony Award for best direction in the 2005 Broadway production of “Sweeney Todd,” will bring his talents to London for his next project, a revival of the musical version of “The Color Purple.” The Menier Chocolate Factory, a 150-seat performance space in a former factory, will host the engagement from July 5 to Sept. 14.

In a telephone conversation on Sunday Mr. Doyle, who will also oversee stage design, said this new production would be quite different from the previous version, which opened on Broadway in 2005.

“I’m basically going to do it on the platform with chairs and a back wall,” h said. “There is no backstage. You really have to engage the audience’s imagination in how you take the story from place to place.”

Mr. Doyle explained that the idea of doing a sparse revival of “The Color Purple” â€" with a book by Marsha Norman and music and lyrics by Brenda Russell, Allee Willis and Stephen Bray â€" in a smaller space had been planted in his mind by the Menier Chocolate Factory during its run of his production of Stephen Sondheim’s “Road Show” in 2011.

“I very much enjoy working in that space,” he said. “It seemed to be a good fit.”

Looking Divine at South by Southwest

Lynn Davis Divine is the subject of a new documentary.

AUSTIN, Tex. â€" Playing on screens throughout the South by Southwest festival this weekend were a variety of documentaries focusing on key figures in gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender communities. “Continental” shines its eye on Steve Ostrow, the owner of the Continental Baths, a bathhouse that became a cultural beacon. “Big Joy” focuses on the gay poet and filmmaker James Broughton, whose work in the 1960s and ’70s made him a voice of the sexual revolution. “Mr. Angel” spends time with the porn star and activist Buck Angel, whose work has changed perspectives on transgender performers in adult film.

The Film Collaborative The director Jeffrey Schwarz.

But one of the figures who cut a particularly strong and rebellious swath was Divine, a drag queen and film actor who took his brash, over-the-top characterizations on the stage and screen from the fringe and into the mainstream. “I Am Divine,” from the gay filmmaker Jeffrey Schwarz (“Vito”), takes a closer look at the man formerly known as Harris Glenn Milstead and how he created a persona that encouraged the celebration of the outsider and renegade in all of us. In an interview, Mr. Schwarz spoke about his work on the project. Following are edited excerpts from that conversation.

Q.

How did you first come to know about Divine

A.

It all started when I got interested in John Waters back when I was a teenager, reading his books “Shock Value” and “Crackpot” and starting to see interviews with Divine on shows like “Night Flight.” I slowly got interested in the world that John and Divine created. It was so radical and outsider.

Q.

What did you see in Divine that you thought would make for an interesting film

A.

He left such a huge imprint on the world. Over the years, people enjoyed him but were also inspired by him. He helped people be comfortable with who they were, no matter what they looked like or no matter what society told them was wrong with them. He was able to turn all that around and empower himself. Anybody who feels like a freak, for whatever reason, can really find a role model in Divine. And so that was really what touched me about the story.

Robyn Beeche

Q.

How do you think Divine was influential in the world of drag

A.

Before Divine, drag was certainly not hip in any way. There was some of the more radical drag, like the Cockettes and such. But a lot of the drag culture in mainstream gay life was people impersonating Carol Channing or Judy Garland or Barbra Streisand. And Divine was about as far away from that as you could get. He was more punk rock. He made it kind of cool to do drag. When you see drag culture today, the performers are much more outsider and all sorts of body types. Divine made it O.K. to be a big girl.

Q.

Where do you think Divine’s renegade nature came from

A.

Rage. This was a time where there was all this pent-up queer energ! y from al! l those years of repression. To have Divine come in a red fishtail dress in “Pink Flamingos” or in “Multiple Maniacs,” where she shoots straight people, was surprising. I loved that gay culture could be so radical after so many years of being obsequious. That was a new thing.

Clay Geerdes

Q.

How did Divine turn his outsider act into something that became more and more accepted by the mainstream

A.

Well, he wasn’t doing the “Today” show, but he was doing “Late Night With David Letterman.” As someone says in the film, it was a long act that kept building. It was a different time where you could be an underground superstar, where the right people in the right cities know who you are. Early on,he wasn’t craving mainstream acceptance. As time went on and he had created his brand, he did start to think about how he would make a living at it. He did that by creating a disco persona, recording disco songs that weren’t huge hits here, but they were gigantic hits overseas.

Q.

What was your process for structuring the documentary

A.

It was kind of a cradle-to-grave approach. We looked at it as kind of a superhero origin story, the birth of this character. So it’s sort of a traditional three-act structure. I’m not trying to rewrite rules of documentary filmmaking. I really just try to focus on a clean through line of a life.

Q.

What archival materials did you use

A.

There are the films themselves. We were able to find interviews that Divine did over the years on radio and TV shows. John did extensive interviews with Divine that he recorded for his book “Shock Value.! ” We tr! ied to amass everything and let Divine tell his own story as much as possible. And of course, all the incredible photographs over the years people took of him. He loved being photographed.

Q.

Did you have any new discoveries about Divine making the film

A.

A lot of people would talk to me about Divine and say he was overweight and he was lonely and he never had love. And that’s so not true. What I learned, from talking to his friends, was that he did have a lot of love in his life. And also, he got a lot of action.

‘Oz the Great and Powerful’ Has Big Opening

LOS ANGELES â€" It was gridlock on the yellow brick road over the weekend as “Oz the Great and Powerful,” backed by a megawatt marketing campaign, took in about $80.3 million in North America and $69.9 million overseas.

That strong result represents one of the biggest March debuts ever. Still, the weeks ahead remain crucial: “Oz the Great and Powerful” cost an estimated $325 million to make and market and will need to continue selling tickets at a sizzling pace to turn into the kind of financial juggernaut that Walt Disney Studios wanted. Disney had hoped for another “Alice in Wonderland,” which sold more than $116 million in tickets on its opening weekend in March 2010 and ultimately took in about $1 billion worldwide. “Oz” is clearly no “Alice.” But a hit is hit; Disney’s live-action label has struggled of late, and “Oz” indicates a turnaround may finally be taking hold.

Disney said that 53 percent of ticket sales in North America came from premium-priced 3-D viewings, including Imax. The audience was about evenly split between men and women, and 46 percent of ticket buyers were under 25. The movie played in 3,912 theaters in North America. “Oz the Great and Powerful,” a prequel to the 1939 classic that focuses on the wizard’s back story, got sharply mixed reviews, although it did squeak out a “fresh” rating on RottenTomatoes.com. Audiences gave the movie, directed by Sam Raimi and starring James Franco in the title role, a B-plus score in exit polls.

Hollywood is not known for its collegiality, but rival studios were nearly unanimous in their praise of the advertising campaign for “Oz the Great and Powerful.” The! man behind that curtain was Ricky Strauss, Disney’s president for movie marketing, and he generated interest with stunts (a hot air balloon tour of the United States) and theme park tie-ins (an Oz topiary garden at Epcot).

There was also a Super Bowl commercial and an unusual takeover of the Google home page. Disney dispatched Mr. Franco to serve as grand marshal of the Daytona 500 and staged premieres in Tokyo, Moscow, London and Paris.

For the weekend, “Jack the Giant Slayer” (Warner Brothers) was second, taking in about $10 million, for a dismal two-week total of $43.8 million, according to Hollywood.com, which compiles box-office data. “Identity Thief” (Universal Pictures) was third, with an estimated $6.3 million in ticket sales, for a five-week total of $116.5 million. “Dead Man Down” (Film District), a crime drama starring Colin Farrell and Noomi Rapace, was dead on arrival, selling about $5.4 million in tickets, for fourth lace. “Snitch” (Lionsgate) placed fifth, with about $5.1 million in sales, for a three-week total of $31.9 million.

‘Oz the Great and Powerful’ Has Big Opening

LOS ANGELES â€" It was gridlock on the yellow brick road over the weekend as “Oz the Great and Powerful,” backed by a megawatt marketing campaign, took in about $80.3 million in North America and $69.9 million overseas.

That strong result represents one of the biggest March debuts ever. Still, the weeks ahead remain crucial: “Oz the Great and Powerful” cost an estimated $325 million to make and market and will need to continue selling tickets at a sizzling pace to turn into the kind of financial juggernaut that Walt Disney Studios wanted. Disney had hoped for another “Alice in Wonderland,” which sold more than $116 million in tickets on its opening weekend in March 2010 and ultimately took in about $1 billion worldwide. “Oz” is clearly no “Alice.” But a hit is hit; Disney’s live-action label has struggled of late, and “Oz” indicates a turnaround may finally be taking hold.

Disney said that 53 percent of ticket sales in North America came from premium-priced 3-D viewings, including Imax. The audience was about evenly split between men and women, and 46 percent of ticket buyers were under 25. The movie played in 3,912 theaters in North America. “Oz the Great and Powerful,” a prequel to the 1939 classic that focuses on the wizard’s back story, got sharply mixed reviews, although it did squeak out a “fresh” rating on RottenTomatoes.com. Audiences gave the movie, directed by Sam Raimi and starring James Franco in the title role, a B-plus score in exit polls.

Hollywood is not known for its collegiality, but rival studios were nearly unanimous in their praise of the advertising campaign for “Oz the Great and Powerful.” The! man behind that curtain was Ricky Strauss, Disney’s president for movie marketing, and he generated interest with stunts (a hot air balloon tour of the United States) and theme park tie-ins (an Oz topiary garden at Epcot).

There was also a Super Bowl commercial and an unusual takeover of the Google home page. Disney dispatched Mr. Franco to serve as grand marshal of the Daytona 500 and staged premieres in Tokyo, Moscow, London and Paris.

For the weekend, “Jack the Giant Slayer” (Warner Brothers) was second, taking in about $10 million, for a dismal two-week total of $43.8 million, according to Hollywood.com, which compiles box-office data. “Identity Thief” (Universal Pictures) was third, with an estimated $6.3 million in ticket sales, for a five-week total of $116.5 million. “Dead Man Down” (Film District), a crime drama starring Colin Farrell and Noomi Rapace, was dead on arrival, selling about $5.4 million in tickets, for fourth lace. “Snitch” (Lionsgate) placed fifth, with about $5.1 million in sales, for a three-week total of $31.9 million.

Vestiges of Harlem’s Gay Nightlife Give Way to Wreckers

A block in Harlem that once resonated to the sounds of some of America’s top musicians has, in recent weeks, heard nothing more than the mournful rasp of hydraulic shears and a hydraulic excavator clawing away the remains of a century-old entertainment complex.

Ad in The Times, Jan. 29, 1935.

A year and a half from now, if all goes according to plan, the block of Seventh Avenue between West 131st and West 132nd Street will have gained an eight-story building with 115 new rental apartments, one-fifth of them for lower-income families; a new church and fellowship hall; a new garage and new stores.

But it will also have lost a rich cache of socialand cultural history: the former Lafayette Theater and an abutting structure that long ago housed Connie’s Inn and the Ubangi Club; venues where Louis Armstrong, Bessie Smith, Fats Waller, Ethel Waters, Duke Ellington and Gladys Bentley appeared.

Gladys Bentley

She was a renowned singer in the ’20s and ’30s who cut her hair short, dressed in tailcoats and appeared at the Ubangi Club with a troupe of young men. “If these boys were put into dresses they would be indistinguishable from the chorines,” the weekly newspaper, New York Age, told its readers. And from uptown to downtown, the patrons simply adored them.

“Gladys Bentley’s lesbianism, tuxedo and wicked double-entendre rewrites of popular tunes were definitely part of the draw, along with her backup chorus line of flamboyant black gay men,” George Chauncey, the chairman of Yale’s history department, said. “It had a more egalitarian and welcoming flavor, in both racial and sexual terms, than the segregated Cotton Club ever did.”

James F. Wilson, executive director of the CUNY Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies, said the Ubangi Club, the Lafayette and Connie’s were at the epicenter of the cultural and musical scene during the Harlem Renaissance. “The Ubangi Club, in particular, epitomized the raucous energy and devil-may-care attitudes of the musicians, singers, and patrons who went there,” he said. “What a relief this club must have offered from the Depression and daily frustrations outside.”

Meltzer Mandl Architects A rendering of the Lafayette, an apartment building on Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard that is to replace the Williams Institutional C.M.E. Church and its adjacent Bell Center. A large cross on the ground floor marks the entrance to the church’s new space.

The Lafayette opened in 1912, flanked symmetrically by matching neo-Classical pavilions. Connie’s Inn, which had a segregated admissions policy, was a tenant in the south pavilion, followed by the Ubangi Club. The whole blockfront was acquired in 1951 by the Williams Institutional Christian Methodist Episcopal Church! , which u! sed the theater as its sanctuary.

The north pavilion was torn down many years ago. The south pavilion was renamed the Bell Center, after Bishop William Yancey Bell, who founded the church in 1919. To the dismay of preservationists, the church stripped the theater of its elaborate original facade in 1990 and replaced it with something more ecclesiastical but far plainer.

When the Rev. Dr. Julius C. Clay was called from Oklahoma City to the pastorate of Williams in 2006, he expected to be a caretaker of a once-vibrant congregation that had fallen on hard times. Just how hard became clear almost immediately. The property went into foreclosure.

From that desperate moment came a deal with the BRP Development Corporation, which acquired the site to develop a 166,000-square-foot building. Designed by Meltzer Mandl Architects, it is to be finished in the winter of 2014. Financing for the $46 million project has involved the Housing Partnership Development Corporation and the Goldman Sachs Urban Investment Group.

Michael Henry Adams At the demolition site.

The building, to be called the Lafayette, will include 19,000 square feet for the church, which will have its own entrance on Seventh Ave! nue, with! a large cross to underscore its religious identity. The sanctuary will have a balcony and seat about 700 worshipers, Dr. Clay said. There will also be classrooms, offices and a fellowship hall. The pastor said the church was getting new space worth $5 million.

“Free of debt,” Dr. Clay said. “That’s the real miracle of the whole thing. I thank God for that.”

For now, the Williams congregation is worshiping at the James Varick Community Center, 151 West 136th Street. “I’m getting a lot of buzz,” Dr. Clay said. “A lot of people are coming up to me on the street and other places, in phone calls and e-mails. People are telling me that once it’s finished, they’re coming. It looks like we’re going to grow as a result of this.”

Still, preservationists like Michael Henry Adams, who has been fighting for Harlem’s architectural patrimony for decades, are dismayed about losing another historical treasure. He aulted the Landmarks Preservation Commission, but a spokeswoman for the agency said it had never received a request for a formal evaluation of the building’s eligibility.

“It sounds really cliché to say,” Dr. Wilson said, “but when I used to take students to Harlem’s historical sites, I would point to the facade of the old Lafayette and the Ubangi structure, and say, ‘If only these walls could talk.’ Sadly, I guess we’ll never have the chance to hear what they’d have to say.”

At a Local Church in Rome, Dolan Delivers a Star Turn

ROME â€" There was no mistaking the fact that a dignitary was coming to Mass in Monte Mario Sunday.

Scores of parishioners lined the small driveway in front of Our Lady of Guadulupe Church, holding babies and iPhones. A huge crush of media, wielding television cameras and boom mikes, surrounded the church entrance. And then neighbors and shoppers began to drift in, wondering what all the hubbub was about; at one point, children scaled a chain-link playground fence to get a better glimpse.

Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan always cuts a wide swath â€" he is a big man with a big job and a big personality. But on Sunday, just two days before the College of Cardinals is to begin the conclave at which it will select a new pope, his visit to a neighborhood church in Rome had all the makings of a celebrity visit, and the archbishop of New York did not disappoint.

“Where are my St. Louis people” he asked, before chatting with the visitors about the Cardinals. “How’syour Uncle Ralph” he said to another. And, to the WCBS-AM radio reporter, “Rich Lamb! You are like a Roman monument! To see Rich Lamb in Rome!”

He kissed babies, shook hands, hugged, and greeted worshipers in heavily accented but ready Italian. He worked the pews like a rope line, moving so slowly through the church that he arrived at the altar several minutes after the rest of the procession.

He offered no clues about who he would support as the next pope, how long he thought the selection process might take, or how he felt about being mentioned as a possible candidate. “Boy, it’s good to see you all!” he said when asked a probing question.

He did say that he was “anxious to get started,’’ and that, although he thought the field of candidates had been quite unsettled when he arrived in Rome nearly a week ago, he now felt “serenity” as well as “trust and faith.” Citing what he said was an Italian aphorism, “you can only make gnocchi with the dough you got! ,’’ he said, “we want to be good dough for the Holy Spirit to work through.’’

And, as he has repeatedly done before, he said he thought it would be great to install a new pope on March 19, which Catholics celebrate as the Feast of St. Joseph.

His most explicit reference to the conclave was a joke about the meals the cardinals will be served once they moved into the Casa Santa Marta, a Vatican residence where they will be housed until from the start of the conclave until a new pope is chosen. Thanking the worshipers for giving him a large woven basket filled with Italian biscuits, cookies, tuna, and chickpeas, he said, “maybe I can take a small candy bar into the conclave. I hear that the food is not good.”

The cardinal’s visit to the church was one of many made by cardinals to churches throughout Rome on Sunday, as they invited Catholics to pray for the church and the election of a new pope. Most cardinals are assigned titular churches in Rome, which they visit periodicallyand assist with fund-raising; Cardinal Dolan’s is Our Lady of Guadalupe, a small and relatively plain parish church in a middle class neighborhood on a hill about 15 minutes from the center of Rome.

At the start of the Mass, the priest was unable to find a match to light candles, and walked through the packed pews asking if anyone had a lighter.

But Cardinal Dolan was greeted like royalty: the “Prince of Denmark’s March” accompanied his entrance. An artist in the parish, Italo Celli, crafted and gave the cardinal a bronze bas-relief of a mother cradling a baby.

“You are also an elector of the next Holy Father and we are sure we are in good hands,’’ said Monsignor Franco Mammoli, the pastor. “You have all the gifts needed, and the Holy Spirit to guide you.”

Cardinal Dolan, as is his wont, beamed through the Mass â€" at the worshipers as they greeted him, at the choir as he sang, at an icon of the Virgin of Guadalupe when her name was mentioned, at the heavens ! as he pra! yed. In his five-minute homily, delivered in Italian, he said the church was his second favorite, after St. Patrick’s Cathedral, but, in an exaggerated stage whisper, he asked the worshipers not to share that fact with New Yorkers or the news media.

Parishioners were alternately mystified by the fuss, and impressed with Cardinal Dolan’s charm.

Sabrina Filippi, 55, a shopkeeper, had seen Cardinal Dolan on his previous visit, in October, and welcomed him back to the church on Sunday.

“He is just very pleasant and funny man, very easygoing, not intimidating at all, very personable,’’ she said. “I really wish he could be Pope. Among the contenders, he is the closest to John Paul II, he is enthralling, a real leader. ‘’

Jean-Marie Manè, 37, from Senegal, said he, too, had been struck by the cardinal’s warmth; as he walked by, the cardinal patted Mr. Manè’s 2-year-old son and called him “my new friend from Mass.”

“He is always smiling,’’ Mr. Manè said “When he came in October, he took a picture with my son. He was spreading the joy to be Christian all around.’’

Alessia Capodanno, a 39-year old housewife who lives in the neighborhood and was taking her 9-year old daughter to Mass, was just impressed to have a high-ranking church official in the neighborhood.

“We had no idea that he was coming, it’s an honor that he is coming to see us,’’ she said. “What’s his name, by the way”

Gaia Pianigiani contributed reporting.

At a Local Church in Rome, Dolan Delivers a Star Turn

ROME â€" There was no mistaking the fact that a dignitary was coming to Mass in Monte Mario Sunday.

Scores of parishioners lined the small driveway in front of Our Lady of Guadulupe Church, holding babies and iPhones. A huge crush of media, wielding television cameras and boom mikes, surrounded the church entrance. And then neighbors and shoppers began to drift in, wondering what all the hubbub was about; at one point, children scaled a chain-link playground fence to get a better glimpse.

Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan always cuts a wide swath â€" he is a big man with a big job and a big personality. But on Sunday, just two days before the College of Cardinals is to begin the conclave at which it will select a new pope, his visit to a neighborhood church in Rome had all the makings of a celebrity visit, and the archbishop of New York did not disappoint.

“Where are my St. Louis people” he asked, before chatting with the visitors about the Cardinals. “How’syour Uncle Ralph” he said to another. And, to the WCBS-AM radio reporter, “Rich Lamb! You are like a Roman monument! To see Rich Lamb in Rome!”

He kissed babies, shook hands, hugged, and greeted worshipers in heavily accented but ready Italian. He worked the pews like a rope line, moving so slowly through the church that he arrived at the altar several minutes after the rest of the procession.

He offered no clues about who he would support as the next pope, how long he thought the selection process might take, or how he felt about being mentioned as a possible candidate. “Boy, it’s good to see you all!” he said when asked a probing question.

He did say that he was “anxious to get started,’’ and that, although he thought the field of candidates had been quite unsettled when he arrived in Rome nearly a week ago, he now felt “serenity” as well as “trust and faith.” Citing what he said was an Italian aphorism, “you can only make gnocchi with the dough you got! ,’’ he said, “we want to be good dough for the Holy Spirit to work through.’’

And, as he has repeatedly done before, he said he thought it would be great to install a new pope on March 19, which Catholics celebrate as the Feast of St. Joseph.

His most explicit reference to the conclave was a joke about the meals the cardinals will be served once they moved into the Casa Santa Marta, a Vatican residence where they will be housed until from the start of the conclave until a new pope is chosen. Thanking the worshipers for giving him a large woven basket filled with Italian biscuits, cookies, tuna, and chickpeas, he said, “maybe I can take a small candy bar into the conclave. I hear that the food is not good.”

The cardinal’s visit to the church was one of many made by cardinals to churches throughout Rome on Sunday, as they invited Catholics to pray for the church and the election of a new pope. Most cardinals are assigned titular churches in Rome, which they visit periodicallyand assist with fund-raising; Cardinal Dolan’s is Our Lady of Guadalupe, a small and relatively plain parish church in a middle class neighborhood on a hill about 15 minutes from the center of Rome.

At the start of the Mass, the priest was unable to find a match to light candles, and walked through the packed pews asking if anyone had a lighter.

But Cardinal Dolan was greeted like royalty: the “Prince of Denmark’s March” accompanied his entrance. An artist in the parish, Italo Celli, crafted and gave the cardinal a bronze bas-relief of a mother cradling a baby.

“You are also an elector of the next Holy Father and we are sure we are in good hands,’’ said Monsignor Franco Mammoli, the pastor. “You have all the gifts needed, and the Holy Spirit to guide you.”

Cardinal Dolan, as is his wont, beamed through the Mass â€" at the worshipers as they greeted him, at the choir as he sang, at an icon of the Virgin of Guadalupe when her name was mentioned, at the heavens ! as he pra! yed. In his five-minute homily, delivered in Italian, he said the church was his second favorite, after St. Patrick’s Cathedral, but, in an exaggerated stage whisper, he asked the worshipers not to share that fact with New Yorkers or the news media.

Parishioners were alternately mystified by the fuss, and impressed with Cardinal Dolan’s charm.

Sabrina Filippi, 55, a shopkeeper, had seen Cardinal Dolan on his previous visit, in October, and welcomed him back to the church on Sunday.

“He is just very pleasant and funny man, very easygoing, not intimidating at all, very personable,’’ she said. “I really wish he could be Pope. Among the contenders, he is the closest to John Paul II, he is enthralling, a real leader. ‘’

Jean-Marie Manè, 37, from Senegal, said he, too, had been struck by the cardinal’s warmth; as he walked by, the cardinal patted Mr. Manè’s 2-year-old son and called him “my new friend from Mass.”

“He is always smiling,’’ Mr. Manè said “When he came in October, he took a picture with my son. He was spreading the joy to be Christian all around.’’

Alessia Capodanno, a 39-year old housewife who lives in the neighborhood and was taking her 9-year old daughter to Mass, was just impressed to have a high-ranking church official in the neighborhood.

“We had no idea that he was coming, it’s an honor that he is coming to see us,’’ she said. “What’s his name, by the way”

Gaia Pianigiani contributed reporting.