2nd Ave Deli Sign

Now and then, the lost artifacts of vanished New York will resurface.

I heard from a painter who recently moved his studio into a former woodshop's space in the East Village. In the backyard, under piles of junk, he unearthed the double-sided neon sign of the old Second Avenue Deli.



Opened in 1954, the deli (and the sign) stood on the southeast corner of Second Avenue and East 10th Street until 2006, when it closed due to a rent dispute with the building's new owner.

Reported the Times, "Jack Lebewohl said he faced an increase in monthly rent to $33,000 from $24,000. The space also needed substantial renovations he was unwilling to invest in without a reasonable long-term lease. His landlord told The Times that Lebewohl owed $107,000 and that eviction proceedings had started. They settled for $75,000."

Comic Jackie Mason told the paper, "It's almost like wiping out Carnegie Hall. A sandwich to a Jew is just as important as a country to a Gentile."


photo by James & Karla Murray

A Chase bank moved into the space, installed just two blocks away from the next nearest Chase bank, and a block or two from several more banks.

As I wrote in my book, Vanishing New York, "Today, the Second Avenue Deli’s Yiddish Walk of Fame remains, out of context and rapidly fading. Carved in stone on the sidewalk are names from the days when this strip was the Jewish Broadway—Fyvush Finkel, Ida Kaminska, Lillian Lux, Ludwig Satz. The names are worn down, ignored and flattened by the crowds walking past, grabbing cash from the ATM before making a beeline for the next pitcher of beer and bucket of Buffalo hot wings...at one of the many laddish sports bars that have sprouted along the avenue."

A new Second Avenue Deli opened in Murray Hill, and then the Upper East Side, but the old signage did not go with them.

I came upon one, some years back, at the City Reliquary museum in Brooklyn.


at the City Reliquary

And now the other has been found and rescued. The painter who discovered it reached out to the Lebewohl family and they picked it up.

The painter says that Josh Lebewohl, grandson of deli founder Abe, was glad to get the sign back. "I think he's going to try and place it with the Jewish Museum," the painter told me, "or maybe the New York Historical Society or Museum of the City of New York."