It’s Closing Time at the Carnegie Deli

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By Daniel J. Solomon December 30, 2016

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.

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 solomon@forward.com or on Twitter @DanielJSolomon

Daniel J. Solomon is the former Assistant to the Editor/News Writer at the Forward. Originally from Queens, he attended Harvard as an undergraduate, where he wrote his senior thesis on French-Jewish intellectual history. He is excited to have returned to New York after his time in Massachusetts. Daniel’s passions include folk music, cycling, and pointed argument.

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