21 May 2007

Second Avenue Deli in Time for Christmas?

Well, this is kinda awesome news: the Second Avenue Deli will return from the grave in five months time, re: Eater.com. I say "Kinda" because it will be reborn at 33rd Street and Third Avenue—far from its original location at Second Avenue and 12th Steet, and far, far way from it's spiritual base: the former location of the Yiddish Rialto. But who knows—maybe the place will include some of the old joint's interior.

The news came to Eater.com is a notably romantic way. The informer told of the old Second Avenue Deli van pulling up alongside his cab on Atlantic Avenue. A brief exchange took place between the cab passenger and the van driver, in which the latter spilled the beans about the famed delicatessen reopening in a new location. (New of this move actually cropped up back in January, but there hasn't been a peep since.)

33rd and Third. Does anyone else think it's funny that the Deli will now live at this address? When I was young, my sister, hopeful of a career on the stage, won the part of a dancer in a community production of Sweet Charity. She bought a book on accents to practice her Brooklyn twang. One of the phrases she repeated ad nauseam was "33rd and Third," pronounced "Toirty-toird and Toird." Like some old-time movie taxi driver. If the Deli really opens, some old time Brooklynites can finally get some use out of that locution.

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