Posted on 05/15/2013 11:45:06 AM PDT by nickcarraway
“I’m from out of town, and I like a good pastrami sandwich,” said Jeffrey A. Devore, a lawyer from West Palm Beach, Fla., who was sitting in Katz’s, the Lower East Side delicatessen that, like the neighborhood itself, has become a study in contrasts.
Mr. Devore had driven into Manhattan in his rental car after a court hearing in Newark and had taken a seat amid what a critic once described as the “terrazzo-and-Formica ambience, with a cafeteria counter along one side and signs instructing you, as of yore, to ‘Send a salami to your boy in the Army.’”
Beneath the long, bright fluorescents that illuminate that comfortably old-fashioned backdrop, Mr. Devore opened his iPad and began reading The Wall Street Journal.
It was enough to make one wonder how to say “plus ça change” in Yiddish.
But even Katz’s, at 205 East Houston Street, at Ludlow Street, has adapted as the landscape has been remade.
In the very next block is an apartment building with a Web site that says two-bedroom apartments start at $5,500 a month; a gelato store and a nail salon occupy the first-floor storefronts. Katz’s is now open 24 hours a day on weekends, in part to accommodate younger, hipper customers who are out later than late. In the old days, no one risked being on the street on the far side of midnight.
“It was a very tough neighborhood,” said Alan Dell, 65, one of the owners of Katz’s since 1988. “Drugs and that kind of thing. You felt nervous about coming.”
His son, Jake, 25, added: “You ran in from the car and ran out. This was a safe place, always, but not the neighborhood.”
Now, Alan Dell said, the neighborhood has multimillion-dollar condominiums.
“Who’d have thought?” Jake Dell said.
(Excerpt) Read more at cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com ...
But how’s the gabbagoo?
 |
| "Schwartz’s Deli on 'The Main' (3895 Saint-Laurent Boulevard, Montreal)" |
 |
| "Schwartz’s Montreal Smoked Meat Sandwich" |
 |
| "Schwartz’s Whole Schmear (not the 'official' name, they substituted coffee for black cherry cola and forgot the coleslaw)!" |
Review of the Best Montreal Smoked Meat Eateries
Gotta go, wipe the drool off my chin and the keyboard and get to Costco! YUM!
Must have been the interaction with the motorcycle gang that was memorable.
Actually it was in “Pikes Peek Or Bust”, 1946.
That’s Earl, brother.
;^)
A work of art.
Add me to the count for remembering Earl Wilson...as much as I hate to admit it.
I know, I know. I also remember Leonard Lyons, Jack O’Brien and Joey Adams. My NY was the NY of “Sweet Smell of Success.”
I don’t know. My mother wouldn’t let me watch the beach movies and they’re rarely shown on tv anymore!
I remember Earl Wilson from his syndicated column, since I never was in NYC until I was in my 30s (mid- to late-80s). I think some of his stuff was also published in Reader’s Digest, too.
We always had the Journal American, the Daily News & The Post. Plus the Brooklyn Tablet. Remember when the Post was a liberal paper? It wasn’t until the 70s that we began to take the Times. Grew up reading wonderful stuff in those papers.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.