LANDLORD GREED KILLS SECOND AVENUE DELI!!

By Chris Flash

[June 2006] After more than 50 years of operating in the same location at 158 Second Avenue, owner Jacob Lebewohl elected to close the world famous Second Avenue Deli last January, rather than complete planned renovations that would have added value to the building, due to the landlord's refusal to offer a reasonable rent. The deli had been facing a rent increase from an obscene $28,000 per month to an insane $33,000 per month.

In 1950, Jacob's brother Abraham, a Jewish immigrant from Ukraine, began working as a waiter in a 12-seat capacity coffee shop on Second Avenue and 10th Street. Four years later, Mr. Lebewohl and his family bought the tiny coffee shop, eventually expanding it to accommodate 250 people. Over the following decades, the Second Avenue Deli became renowned for its appetizing kosher foods and Eastern European and Ukrainian delicacies.

The Second Avenue Deli grew to be one of the best in the world, attracting luminaries and celebrities from everywhere, as well as regulars from the neighborhood. Mr. Lebewohl, called Abe or Abie by friends and customers, became known as "The Mayor of Second Avenue." 

On March 4, 1996, Abe Lebewohl was shot and killed while on his way to the bank to make a deposit. To date, the NYPD has failed to find those responsible. In tribute to Mr. Lebewohl, a small triangular city park across the street from the Second Avenue Deli, next to the St. Mark's Church, was officially renamed Abe Lebewohl Park in October 1996.

The current landlord, Jonis Realty, acquired 158 Second Avenue in August 2005 for $18.635 million, as part of a $93 million real estate portfolio purchased from the Wilpon family, which shrewdly sold its real estate holdings at the peak of the market. Owners of the NY Mets baseball team, the Wilpons are currently in the process of obtaining City Council approval for a new taxpayer-subsidized Mets stadium to be built next to Shea stadium in Queens.

One of the buildings in the Wilpon portfolio purchased by Jonis, located at 157 Second Avenue, across the street from the Second Avenue Deli, contains a now vacant storefront that was once the location of a pizzeria that closed down two months after attempting to do business there at $14,000 per month in rent. Just to cover that rent, the pizzeria would have had to sell more than 233 slices per day every day of the week, at $2.00 per slice, assuming that those 233 slices cost the pizzeria nothing to make!!

The former Second Avenue Deli space has been sitting vacant since January. A "For Rent" banner can be seen in the window, hoping to attract a new sucker to offset the mortgage deficit that the new owners are no doubt experiencing on their building at 158 Second Avenue.

[UPDATE: In early 2007, the space occupied by the Second Avenue Deli, as well as a small newspaper store next door in the same building, was taken by Chase bank, putting yet another corner bank in the East Village (a branch of Northfork Savings Bank took the corner across the street a year or so earlier). In December 2007, the Lebewohl family announced the reopening of the Second Avenue Deli at 162 East 33rd Street, more than 23 blocks away, in a smaller space. This time, the family owns the building, from which they cannot be evicted or have their rent jacked up by a greedy landlord.]