Uncategorized
How the Lower East Side has changed since the 1988 rom-com ‘Crossing Delancey’
(New York Jewish Week) — The classic and very Jewish 1988 film “Crossing Delancey” is one of those movies that feels both extremely of its time and also completely timeless.
Director Joan Micklin Silver’s film has all the classic rom-com trappings: A woman who’s torn between two men (and to that end, two worlds); complaints about how hard it is to meet a man in New York City (as true in 1988 as it is in 2022), and a “mother” figure who knows better (here, a Jewish grandmother known as Bubbe, and in this case, she actually does know better). You could pluck all these specifics and drop them into a present-day film — and, if told with the heart and care of “Crossing Delancey,” still have a pretty good movie.
Yet there’s one thing about the “Crossing Delancey” that fully anchors it in the past, and that is its late-1980s Lower East Side setting. While our heroine, Izzy (Amy Irving), lives and works on the Upper West Side, she pays frequent visits to her Bubbe (Yiddish theater actress Reizl Bozyk), her grandmother, downtown. From the moment that Izzy steps off the train at Delancey Street, she’s transported to another world: a bustling Jewish enclave with market-goers shopping for produce, friends and neighbors in the streets kibbitzing and a Hasidic child sitting outside the subway, enjoying a treat from a local bakery.
This dichotomy between the “Old World” of the Lower East Side and the “New World” uptown is the central conflict of the film: Izzy’s inability to reconcile her Jewish roots with her desire to live a secular, intelligentsia lifestyle, as represented by her two love interests (Sam the Pickle Man and Anton, the self-important author).
However, rewatching the film in the present day, I can’t help but wonder: Would Izzy run from the shtetl if she knew that in a few years, it wouldn’t exist anymore? That due to rising rents and a shift in population, many Jewish businesses would meet their end — or, somewhat ironically, be part of the flight to Brooklyn that began in the early-to-mid 2000s? In some ways, 1988 itself was the beginning and the end: It marked the opening of the Lower East Side Tenement Museum, an effort to preserve the neighborhood’s immigrant past, and it was the very same year that Mayor Koch created a new redevelopment proposal for the Seward Park Extension, a canary in the coal mine for the sea change of development the city would see over the next 30 years.
Re-watching the film in 2022, it struck me how the Lower East Side’s bustling Jewish enclave — the same place where my grandparents were born and raised — has since been lost to time, gentrification and re-zoning plans. These days, the neighborhood paints a different picture entirely: giant buildings hog entire city blocks, with construction promising even more sky-high buildings. There’s no specific character to the neighborhood, no story to tell, few places more integral to the city’s fabric than the Delancey-Essex McDonald’s.
Of course, if you’ve lived in the city long enough, you know there’s no getting comfortable. New Yorkers have to, in essence, harden their hearts. We must accept that the local business you love that’s here today very well could be gone tomorrow — even if that business is a Duane Reade. The Lower East Side of today is not the neighborhood of 1988, or 1968 or 1928.
But amongst all of the present-day residential developments, upscale clothing stores and fast food chains, old-school Jewish businesses like The Pickle Guys, Kossar’s Bagels and Bialys and Yonah Schimmel’s Knish Bakery are still thriving. (And, I’d like to think that if you look hard enough, you’ll find some meddling but well-meaning bubbes and yentas, too.)
While we might not be able to fully experience the Lower East Side as the cast and crew of “Crossing Delancey,” here are four places from “Crossing Delancey” that you can still visit, and four that are sadly gone forever.
What Remains Today
Bubbe’s Apartment
154 Broome Street
The interior shots of Bubbe’s apartment, where Izzy fulfills all of her granddaughterly duties, like singing with her grandmother in Yiddish and plucking her chin hairs, were filmed at 154 Broome Street. The 181-unit building sits at the mouth of the Williamsburg Bridge — which is why Bubbe has that spectacular view — and is part of the New York City Housing Authority’s Seward Park Housing Extension. So while you still can visit the exterior of Bubbe’s apartment building today, don’t linger too long — it might weird out the current tenants.
Essex Market
108 Essex Street
This one is a little complicated. The original Essex Market, where Bubbe shows off her Korean-language skills, still stands today. (If you get off at the subway at Delancey Street, you can’t really miss it.) But that iteration of the market closed its doors in 2019 — in order to relocate to a building across the street so big and so glassy it would make Michael Bloomberg blush. In addition to apartments, office space and a movie theater (it’s a truly mixed-use building for our modern times!), Essex Market does boast local, independent vendors, such as Essex Olive & Spice, Porto Rico Importing Co. and Puebla Mexicana food. Per the New York Times, only one of the market’s vendors decided to forgo the move, opting instead for retirement. But you might want to pay a visit to the original Essex Market while you still can — even if only to give it one last look. Following the move, Essex Market initially housed some avant-garde art installations, but it has since seemingly closed its doors for good. According to Gothamist, it’s to be razed to create — what else? — more condos.
Seward Park Handball Court
Essex Street between Grand and Hester Streets
From the moment Sam and Izzy meet, he makes no effort to hide his ardor. In fact, I’d say he uses every weapon in his arsenal to demonstrate his interest — even going so far as to try to impress her with his handball skills when she unexpectedly drops by the court. (You might also clock his CUNY sweatshirt, as I most certainly did.) The handball court is still there, should you decide you want to play a pickup game, but sadly the court’s colorful mural depicted in the film has since been painted over.
Bonus: Gray’s Papaya
2090 Broadway
While this article is focused on the film’s Lower East Side locations, and with good reason, we’d be remiss if we didn’t point out that one important New York institution Izzy visits triumphantly remains: The Upper West Side Gray’s Papaya. There, Izzy celebrates her birthday with a friend and a hot dog — the right way to do it, in my opinion — when a woman bursts in singing “Some Enchanted Evening,” for everyone and no one in particular. It’s one of many of the film’s classic New York moments.
What’s Been Replaced
Steinberg’s Dairy
21 Essex Street
When Izzy emerges from that train at Delancey Street, director Silver takes great care to immerse us in this world. The camera stays on Izzy as she walks from the subway to Bubbe’s apartment, passing a host of local businesses along the way. Among them is Steinberg’s Dairy, which once lived at 21 Essex Street. Steinberg’s Dairy, which also had an Upper West Side location, offered staples like herring, egg salad and vegetarian chopped liver for less than a dollar back in 1941. Today, if you’re in the area, you can grab a drink at the punk rock bar Clockwork, which opened in 2013.
Zelig Blumenthal
13 Essex Street
Izzy also takes us by Zelig’s Blumenthal (also known as Z & A Kol Torah), where three older women sit outside, enjoying the sights and sounds around them. Once a popular Judaica store, it unexpectedly closed its Lower East Side doors in 2010 after 60 years in business. At the time, then-owner Mordechai Blumenthal made the decision to relocate the store to Flatbush due to a dwindling Orthodox population and foot traffic in the area, and a landlord who made clear he “wanted him gone.” It’s unclear if the Flatbush location remains open today, but a vintage clothing store called Country Of has taken up its original spot.
Posner’s Pickles (AKA Guss’ Pickles)
35 Essex Street
Posner’s Pickles, as run by Sam the Pickle Man in the film, was never exactly a real place to begin with. Filming took place at the world-famous Guss’ Pickles, which first opened on Hester Street in 1920, before relocating to Essex Street, where there were once over 80 pickle vendors for locals to choose from. After a stint on Orchard Street, Guss’ Pickles followed in the footsteps of so many others by then, leaving Manhattan to open up shop in Brooklyn’s Dekalb Market in 2017. While Guss’ Pickles is today based out of the Bronx, their delicious pickles are available to order no matter where you are in the country, via Goldbelly. Today, 35 Essex Street is home to Delancey Wine — appropriately named, but doesn’t offer possibilities for a slogan like “a joke and a pickle for only a nickel,” as Posner’s Pickles did in the film.
Schapiro’s Kosher Wines
124 Rivington Street
For 100 years, Schapiro’s Kosher Wines proudly served the Jewish community as the only kosher winery in New York City. It’s where Bubbe chides Izzy for her lack of interest in Sam, and while today the pair couldn’t have this conversation outside Schapiro’s, they could grab brunch at the restaurant Essex. Home to New York City’s “longest-running Brunch Party,” Essex salutes its Lower East Side roots with dishes like potato pancakes and Israeli couscous.
—
The post How the Lower East Side has changed since the 1988 rom-com ‘Crossing Delancey’ appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Uncategorized
Trump administration says 2nd phase of Gaza ceasefire is underway, despite Israeli hostage remaining
(JTA) — Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff announced on Wednesday the beginning of the second phase of the U.S.-brokered ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas, which includes a transitional Palestinian committee to oversee Gaza’s governance.
The announcement drew alarm from the family and advocates of Ran Gvili, a police officer murdered on Oct. 7, 2023, who is the final Israeli hostage remaining in Gaza.
“Moving to phase two at this moment, while the efforts to return Ran have yet to be exhausted, is a loss of the most significant leverage and may be a sentence of eternal disappearance for Ran,” Gvili’s mother, Talik, said in a statement. “Until Ran is returned, the State of Israel will not be able to close its most bloody wound and will not be able to begin the rehabilitation and healing that it so desperately needs. Phase two must not be implemented as long as Ran has not returned home.”
Israeli officials have reportedly assured the family that the advance in the U.S.-engineered plan for Gaza does not undercut pressure to return Gvili’s body. The second phase was supposed to start as soon as all living and dead hostages had been returned, which the original agreement struck in October said should happen immediately.
Witkoff’s announcement follows repeated signals from President Donald Trump that the second phase was imminent, despite allegations of truce violations from both Israel and Hamas.
“Today, on behalf of President Trump, we are announcing the launch of Phase Two of the President’s 20-Point Plan to End the Gaza Conflict, moving from ceasefire to demilitarization, technocratic governance, and reconstruction,” Witkoff wrote in a post on X.
Witkoff said the second phase established a “transitional technocratic Palestinian administration in Gaza,” and would begin the “full demilitarization and reconstruction of Gaza.” The leader of the administration is a former Palestinian Authority deputy minister named Ali Abdel Hamid Shaath.
In a joint statement, the other mediators of the ceasefire deal — Egypt, Turkey and Qatar — wrote that the second phase was an “important development … aimed at consolidating stability and improving the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip.”
The details of how Hamas will be disarmed — a requirement for a permanent peace — remain unclear. Hamas has not agreed to lay down its arms, and fighting in Gaza has continued in fits and starts, including in areas controlled by Israel.
Last month, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with Trump at his Mar-a-Lago estate where the president said that Hamas would be given “a very short period of time to disarm.”
Witkoff indicated in his post that the move to phase two did not preclude consequences for Hamas. He did not specify any, but Israeli officials are reportedly preparing for a potential major Gaza City operation this spring.
“The US expects Hamas to comply fully with its obligations, including the immediate return of the final deceased hostage,” Witkoff wrote. “Failure to do so will bring serious consequences.”
Israeli officials offered a muted response to Witkoff’s announcement, which comes as Israel is preparing for a possible new confrontation with Iran. Netanyahu reportedly sought to cast the announcement as symbolic only.
Some liberal pro-Israel groups offered cautious praise while emphasizing that more needed to be done for a lasting peace.
Brian Romick, the president and CEO of the Democratic Majority for Israel, called the second phase a “welcome step,” but called for the return of Gvili’s remains and increased aid in Gaza. He also called for Hamas to be “fully disarmed” and have no role in Gaza’s governance.
“The Trump administration and the international community must remain focused on enforcing demilitarization, supporting responsible governance, and ensuring that this effort delivers lasting security for Israel and the region,” Romick said.
The president of the liberal Zionist advocacy and lobby group J Street, Jeremy Ben-Ami, also welcomed the announcement in a statement, but called for “prioritizing civilian protection, ensuring the steady flow of humanitarian aid and establishing accountable governance and security arrangements.”
“We support the plan’s focus on Hamas’ demilitarization, Palestinian technocratic governance and reconstruction, and believe that serious diplomacy and international cooperation are essential to saving lives and keeping open a path toward a better future for Israelis and Palestinians rather than endless war,” said Ben-Ami.
The post Trump administration says 2nd phase of Gaza ceasefire is underway, despite Israeli hostage remaining appeared first on The Forward.
Uncategorized
A Yale student returns to class, with a Jewish question (and answer) about why she’s there
“We’re back with the books, in silent rooms, where the world is made of words, like so many before us — and I can’t stop wondering why,” writes Mia Rose Kohn, a cartoonist, journalist and junior studying at Yale University.
In this first installment of a graphic column for the Forward, she draws from the great works of the Jewish Enlightenment to theorists of the modern era, as she asks herself — and us — “If education is a Jewish value, what does Jewish thought have to say about why we’re here?”
The post A Yale student returns to class, with a Jewish question (and answer) about why she’s there appeared first on The Forward.
Uncategorized
He works at a Holocaust museum by day. How’d he end up in ‘Marty Supreme’?
Heading into his audition for Marty Supreme, Isaac Simon was nervous. But not for the reasons you’d expect.
“I was taking a long lunch break from the museum,” he said, “and at the time I was three or four months into my job.”
Appearing in a Josh Safdie movie was something Simon, who runs internship programs at the Museum of Jewish Heritage, had genuinely never dreamed of. He wasn’t an actor, or an aspiring one. He’d never taken an acting class or been in front of a camera.
But two years after he was scouted at a baseball card convention, Simon was invited to try out for the role of Roger, a cocksure amateur who gets hustled on the ping-pong table by Timothée Chalamet’s Marty Mauser. Standing 6-foot-9 with ice-blue eyes, low eyebrows and flowing brown hair, Simon had the look, the paddle skills and, clearly, the temperament to land a pivotal part in an Oscar-bound — and richly Jewish — cinematic hit.
“I don’t get starstruck,” Simon, 31, said. “I get excited.”
The slew of non-actors who feature in Marty Supreme alongside A-listers like Chalamet, Gwyneth Paltrow and Tyler, The Creator has already become part of the film’s lore. Safdie and veteran casting director Jennifer Venditti have a penchant for casting street regulars; among the first-timers in the movie are basketball legend George Gervin, viral TikTok and YouTube personas and the guy from Shark Tank.
But perhaps none had as personal a connection to the film’s story of post-war Jewish striving as Simon, a native New Yorker whose graduate study at Queens College focused on the development of Holocaust studies in the U.S. In Marty Supreme, which is loosely based on the story of real-life midcentury table tennis star Marty Reisman, one of the protagonist’s best friends is a Holocaust survivor; one of the film’s most arresting scenes is an Auschwitz flashback.
Simon’s day job is, of course, at the largest Holocaust museum in New York. The fateful coincidence of his casting, Simon said, was “like a bizarre lottery ticket I was able to cash in.”
A fateful encounter
The story of Simon’s star turn begins in the summer of 2022, when Venditti spotted him at a baseball card show in Long Island. Venditti was there with Safdie; Simon — then still in grad school — was there with his dad.
Venditti said they was there to cast extras and non-actors for a baseball-related movie, and asked if she could take a two-minute video of him talking about himself. He obliged, and in the recording told her where he was from (New York City) and what he was doing at the show (chasing the famously rare T206 tobacco card series).
“I thought to myself, ‘Wow, could I really have been at the right place and the right time for something I wasn’t even expecting?’” Simon recalled. Then two years passed, and the run-in faded from memory.
It was not until the summer of 2024 that he received an email from Venditti: “Isaac Simon audition opportunity – scouted at card show.” No script was provided and nothing about the project was disclosed — just a date and a location.
On his elevator up to the audition, he heard the hollow bouncing of a ping-pong ball. Having seen a headline about Chalamet being attached to a Reisman biopic a few days earlier, he realized what the next few minutes might entail.
“The first audition was a total blur,” Simon recalled. “I remember playing ping pong with the assistant casting director and he was like, ‘Oh you’re good!’” At a subsequent callback, he played out a few improv scenarios — some light trash talking, or being cheated in a game. A few weeks later, he got called in for costume fittings.
He hadn’t solicited any acting tips, or studied film prior to his audition. But his work at the museum, where he trains educators on how to teach the Holocaust in 90 minutes, had prepared him.
“Because teaching is a performance, there is sort of an inherent performative quality to the work I do,” Simon said. “And so I think that that lent itself well — or at the very least, it didn’t hurt — to the work I was being asked to do for Josh.”
‘Cast for a reason’
Having run through his lines with his dad and his girlfriend, Simon headed upstate that fall to play Roger — and play opposite Chalamet. (This time, he took two days off of work.)
Roger, the reigning hotshot at a humdrum bowling alley, features in two scenes. In the first, he’s goaded into wagering $40 against Marty, who’s feigning amateurism, and loses. He reappears a few minutes as Marty fills up at a nearby gas station, realizing he was hustled by the reigning American champion; he and his pals want their money back.
Walking into the converted Bowlero where they shot the first scene, Simon was floored by the set. “Each individual looked like they were from the 1950s, and yet their outfit was distinctly their own,” he recalled. Miyako Bellizzi, the costume designer, had fitted him in a striped button-up and faded blue work pants; Simon’s hair was slicked back and to the side.
He hadn’t met Safdie before he got to set, and his cues from the Uncut Gems co-director were limited.
Over the course of his scenes, there were times when he wasn’t sure he was doing what Safdie wanted. Here, it was his inexperience that Simon drew on. “I kept reminding myself that I was cast for a reason, and I was cast as a non-actor for a reason,” he said, “and what I’m bringing to this experience is inherently different than what a trained actor would be. Therefore, if I were a trained actor, I would not be what Josh was looking for in the scenario.”
He didn’t have too much time to banter with the film’s stars during the shoot; most of his time on set was spent with other bit-players. But when the camera was shooting other actors, Safdie wanted to keep the sound of live table tennis in the background, so he had Chalamet and Simon play each other off-camera.
As to who had the upper hand? “We’re probably about even,” Simon said.
Jewish mythmaking
Even after the shoot, Simon couldn’t quite believe it was real. He told almost no one outside his family, superstitious that the scene would get cut. But then the premiere arrived. “It was surreal,” he said.
He’s now seen the film nine times — yes, all the way through — indulging friends who want to see it with him. And his acting has won some praise, with one X post calling it an “incredible underrated performance” liked more than 2,000 times.
Simon likes the movie, if you couldn’t tell, echoing its director and star in calling it a love letter to New York. The film, Simon said, touches on Jewish identity in a way that reminds him of his own family and their experience in this country.
“The way in which it captured intergenerational relationships in Jewish homes in post-war America, in New York specifically, felt very autobiographical for the way that my relatives talked amongst each other,” he said. “There’s a love there that transcends.”
As a Holocaust educator, Simon felt the movie handled that theme appropriately. He found the honey scene — an Auschwitz flashback too intense to explain here — moving, and the Holocaust humor tactfully dispatched. He loved the yiddish.
Yet Simon still couldn’t wrap his head around his own involvement in such a fitting project. His work passing on the history and memory of the Holocaust to future generations was already meaningful before he got an IMDB page.
“So to be cast in a film and have a speaking line,” he said, “and it just so happens that that film is also this incredibly Jewish film — which has direct references in the scene at Auschwitz — is equally bizarre, but also really beautiful, and oddly perfect.”
The post He works at a Holocaust museum by day. How’d he end up in ‘Marty Supreme’? appeared first on The Forward.