Image by Flickr

After announcing its closure a couple months ago, Manhattan’s Carnegie Deli will serve up its last pastrami sandwich on December 30.

It’s an iconic spot, open for almost eight decades, where Woody Allen filmed scenes for “Broadway Danny Rose,” a monument to New Yorkism. But mostly these days it draws tourists, as the $20 price for a sandwich attests.

In the recent past, Carnegie has suffered adverse business developments — a labor dispute that cost the business millions, a messy and public divorce between owner Melissa Harper and her husband and a city investigation into an illegal gas hookup on the site.

Forwarding the News

Thoughtful, balanced reporting from the Forward and around the web, bringing you updated news and analysis each day.

Terms(Required)

I agree to the Forward's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy

Email(Required)

But Harper has said that the decision to close has nothing to do with those issues, and that she merely wants to have more time to herself and her family.

Nonetheless, it’s sad to see the Carnegie Deli go, as the city loses many of its iconic diners and delicatessens, thanks mainly to gentrification and high rents.

Almost exactly two years ago, the city said a similarly sad goodbye to Cafe Edison, a theater district mainstay founded by Holocaust survivors after the war.

Contact Daniel J. Solomon at [email protected] or on Twitter @DanielJSolomon

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

2X match on all Passover gifts!

$90 → $180 $180 → $360

$360 → $720

Other amount