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Oct
22
In January 2006, I wrote this somewhat lyrical post about how the Second Avenue Deli was closing. I won’t repeat everything I wrote there – I’ll start to cry. But this article in yesterday’s New York Times Magazine, “A Counter History,” which I only read a few minutes ago, brought more tears to my eyes, except this time, because the deli is being reopened by direct relatives of the former founder.
Early next month, the Second Avenue Deli is scheduled to reopen in a building the Lebewohls bought at 162 East 33rd Street between Lexington and Third Avenues, a nondescript patch of Midtown near New York University Medical Center. “The doctors there are so excited,” Jack [brother of founder Abe Lebewohl] said. “Mostly the cardiologists.”
If you don’t know from deli or from the Second Avenue, well – your loss.
Who was Abe Lebewohl:
For 42 years, he was known for feeding people free, whether the homeless or striking union workers. Because the parents of the former Mets pitcher Frank Viola were regular customers, he gave a free salami to anyone with a ticket stub from a game Viola won. When the famed French chef Paul Bocuse was celebrated at an event in New York, Lebewohl sculptured a bust of him in chopped liver. He so revered the cultural history of the Lower East Side that he installed a Yiddish Theater Walk of Fame outside the restaurant so its stars would be remembered. He was not just a deli man but a force of nature, a Holocaust survivor who, as one employee said, “came to this country with a dollar and a dream except for the dollar” and was famous for his random acts of kindness. A woman I know once called the deli at 8 a.m., feverish with flu, and got Lebewohl on the line. By 8:30, he was at her N.Y.U. dorm room, chicken soup in hand, no charge. Both he and the Second Avenue Deli were cornerstones of life in New York City.
Until March 4, 1996. That morning, Lebewohl left the deli in his delivery truck to make his habitual deposit at a nearby bank. He was shot and killed, a victim of a robbery that remains unsolved to this day.
[snip]
“I begged him to stop going to the bank,” Jack said, noting that the month before he was killed, Abe had been robbed in the delivery truck. “I said, ‘For a few dollars we get a service, they’ll pick up the money and they go to the bank.’ And Abe said: ‘No, I enjoy that part of the day. I enjoy schmoozing with the people and going around.’ He said: ‘Listen, if they rob me, they rob me. I don’t resist, I just give them the deposit and that’s it.’ And unfortunately this time — I don’t know what happened, I wasn’t there. I just know Abe. He would not have resisted.” Jack wiped his eyes. “Some people talk on the calendar B.C. and A.D. To me it’s before Abe was shot and after Abe was shot. Because my life and my family’s life changed radically and drastically.”
Who are the customers:
Lebewohl says he expects the clientele at the new deli to be a mixed bag, as always. “The current cardinal, Egan, before he became cardinal, he ate in the deli,” he said. “Cardinal O’Connor ate our food.
“Kathleen Turner came in,” [Steve Cohen] said, “and one of the countermen told her, ‘I love your movies, and I loved your mother Lana’s movies too.’ Joe DiMaggio, all he would eat is chicken in the pot (half a boiled chicken in soup). Older people would come to the table, lean over and talk over his soup.” He mimed some slobbering. “I would keep coming back saying, ‘Let me change your plate.’ Paul Castellano used to come in three times a week for corned beef and pastrami. We had John Gotti. But my favorite was when we had five nuns eating matzoh balls served by a Lebanese waiter — in a kosher deli. That’s New York.”
Who are the cooks:
[General manager Steve] Cohen said that most of the same cooks will return. Just in case anyone thinks that means a crew of Jewish grandmothers, he elaborated: “They are Puerto Rican, Chinese, Haitian, Indian and from Central America. It’s the U.N. back there.”
We had a black chef who made delicious p’tcha, which is jellied calves’ feet, a real old-time Jewish recipe. And I said to him: ‘Eddie, it’s delicious. Where did you learn how to make p’tcha?’ He says, ‘Jack, I’ve been making this since I was a little boy, just with pigs’ feet.’ ”
What gets cooked:
matzoh-ball soup, corned beef, “high-quality, old-school kosher renditions of brisket or flanken or center-cut tongue like silk,” borscht, jellied calves’ feet – “a real old-time Jewish recipe” and more:
My husband and I are going to NYC for a few days soon but the deli won’t be open yet. Wendy – maybe by the time we get there for ASJA? (It’s supposed to reopen next month, according to the article.)
By Jill Miller Zimon at 1:51 pm October 22nd, 2007 in Announcements, Business, Culture, Jewish
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All I know is I cant stand dubm waiters!