New York Day 3 - LES, Tenement Museum & dinner at Katz' deli

Thursday, December 3, 2009

We had breakfast at the Leo House.

We decided to try out the bus system so we could observe the city as opposed to being underground. It took two buses, but we made it to the Lower East Side. We just stumbled around, not seeing all that I had planned but stopping in quite a few shops including a bra store, a deli, and a number of clothing joints including Nick and Sons, one good vintage, and an art gallery or two. At Nick’s I purchased a reversible belt that the salesman was able to cut down to my size and punched in two extra holes.

We came across David Owens Vintage Clothing at 154 Orchard Street just north of Rivington. He had some very nice stuff and I spoke to him about Susan’s 70’s designer clothing and he was interested. I am to email him some photos. davesvintage@aol.com Also he might be interested in my mother’s custom jewelry.
We discovered Il Laboratorio del Gelato at 95 Orchard which was excellent, but not out of this world.

We took the Tenement Museum's "Piece Work" tour on the second floor of a tenement building led by an "educator." He was quite young but good. At the beginning he asked how many people in some way might be related to the garment trade and it was suprizing how many in our small group of about 10 or 12 were, including myself. (My uncle Harry Levine was a cutter at Crown Overall.) The tour featured 3 different time periods of family living. It was well worth taking.

We had dinner at Katz's deli on Houston. I had matzo ball soup which I thought was pretty good, a good pastrami sandwich and an excellent creamy cheesecake. Susan had a brisket sandwich. unfortunately it seemed mostly populated by tourists.