The Guss, The Whole Guss, and Other Pickles

The battle for what's left of the Lower East Side's soul continues, rending new wounds in the City's heart.

According to a flurry of recent articles, the contretemps over who owns the right to call the contents of their brine-filled barrels Guss's Pickles continues to rage, with no conclusion in sight.

In her corner on Orchard Street, Patricia Fairhurst, who took over Guss's LES location—the place where most New Yorkers are used to finding the City's most famous kosher sours and half-sours—says she is the rightful possessor of Guss's good name. She bought the shop from the Baker family in 2004, along with the original recipes.

In his corner in, ahem, Cedarhurst, Long Island, Andrew Leibowitz claims he is the real heir to the legacy of Izzy Guss, who sold his store back in 1976 to the Bakers. He opened his LI concern with Tim Baker in 2002. Leibowitz's family owns United Pickle, a Bronx business that provided Guss's with its cucumbers for years.

Then, in 2005, Leibowitz started asserting that only they sold true Guss' pickles; told Fairhurst to stop selling under that name. Fairhurst sued Leibowitz. Fairhurst sued back. It's no coincidence that 2005 was the year that Fairhurst decided to stop buying Leibowitz pickles, and get her vegetables elsewhere. Then there's the fact that Tim Baker refutes Leibowitz's claim that the Guss legacy was bequeathed unto him. It's not a simple story.

Now, Fairhurst is waging war on Whole Foods, of all places, for carrying Leibowitz's pickles and calling them Guss's. Whole Foods is standing by the Cedarhurst store. (Me, I don't really have much faith in Whole Foods' takes on food authenticity.)

The Times also tells us that a third pickle business, The Pickle Guys, on Essex Street, is run by Alan Kaufman and other former employees of Guss’s Pickles. So, they've got a claim, too.

There's plenty in this saga to make you heave a heavy sigh, but the part that distresses me the most is that, whatever the outcome of these legal battles (a court date is set for July 16), the true Guss's pickles are already erased from history. With all the claims and counter-claims, and the convoluted and contradictory histories, how is the consumer ever to know for sure which pickle place is the historically true one. The court may side with Fairhurst, or with Leibowitz, but a nagging doubt in the collective New Yorker's brain will never be fully convinced. And that's too bad.

There's a positive way to look at the story, too, I suppose. Three stores, all in the New York area, all serious about pickle making. That's good, right? Well, it's not bad, anyway.

No LES, No Guss

Earlier I weighed in as not completely hating Guss' Pickles' announced move from the Lower East Side to Brooklyn.

I did not know all the fact at this point. Let me adjust my opinion.

I hate this.

Why? Because, when Guss' Pickles—a landmark for a century—leaves Manhattan, it will be forced by law to leave its name behind. It will became Someone's Pickles, Whoever's Pickles, anything but Guss' Pickles.

This is all due to the convoluted and ridiculous lawsuit that has dogged the Guss' legacy for the last few years, in which two parties—Guss' Pickles owner Pat Fairhurst and father and son Steve and Andrew Leibowitz of United Pickles—have both laid claim to the famous name.

Writes the Daily News:

[Keeping the name] just wouldn't be kosher under a 2007 settlement between Fairhurst and Steve and Andrew Leibowitz, a father and son duo who also laid claim to the Guss' Pickles name.

Both pickle peddlers insisted they had the true connection to Isidor Guss, the Polish immigrant who sold pickles from a pushcart in the lower East Side and later opened up the shop.

Fairhurst took over the institution from Harold Baker, who had purchased it from Guss' family after the patriarch's death.

But the Leibowitzes, who run United Pickle in the Bronx, also had a long relationship with the store and bought the rights to the name. Son Andrew Leibowitz's company, Crossing Delancey Pickle Enterprises, opened a Guss' Pickle shop in Cedarhurst in 2001.

Fairhurst sued him in 2006, then Andrew Leibowitz countersued. A 2007 settlement allowed Fairhurst to use the name only at her Orchard St. location.

That decision left a bad taste in Fairhurst's mouth, and she has nothing but sour words about it to this day.

"We have a following, they don't," she says simply.

The Leibowitz's hope the move will bring an end to the sticky pickle predicament at long last.

"I wish her all the luck in the world in her new location - as long as she doesn't use our name," said Steve Leibowitz.

That such a sweet and simple thing as a timeless Lower East Side pickle dealer should be ruined through greed and litigation is unforgivable.

I applaud the Curbed network for openly professing a boycott of United Pickles. I join them. Their claim may be tongue-in-cheek. Mine is serious. I don't know why I would ever go to Cedarhurst, but if I do, I'll spit in the Liebowitz's pickle barrels. The family has brine on its hands.

Sour Pickles

The Times reports that a legal battle is threatening to sink the last great pickler in Manhattan, the famous and well-loved Guss' Pickles of the Lower East Side. And, being the Times, the story gave both sides an even shake, even though it seemed fairly clear that one side of the argument was pretty fishy.

A woman named Patricia Fairhurst took over what most New Yorkers regard as the real Guss', the Lower East Side location, formerly on Essex, now on Orchard. Fairhurst's son worked in the shop for years, and when the owner Tim Baker sold in 2004, she took over, buying the shop, the name and the recipes. (Izzy Guss died back in 1976. His children sold it to the Baker family.)

Seems clear enough, right? Only, it's not, owing to the protests of one Andrew Leibowitz. In 2002, he opened a Guss' Pickles branch in Cedarhurst, Long Island, in a partnership deal with Tim Baker. The Leibowitz family owns United Pickle, a Bronx outift that long provided Guss' with its cucumbers. Andrew continued the business on his own after 2004, when Tim left to care for his ailing mother. Andrew is the one who decided to write Fairhurst, telling her she had no right to the hallowed Guss name. Cease and desist! Fairhurst responded by suing.

So, how do we know that Andrew Leibowitz is a weasel with no leg to stand on? Number one, Tim Baker refutes his claim that the Guss legacy was bequeathed unto him lock, stock and barrel (literally, barrel). Number two, he declined to be interviewed by the Times. Number three, he had a lawyer speak for him, a man named Neil Zipkin who said things like "We're not the bad guys. We're just the true owners." Number four, he has a website that carries messages like “Others claim to be Guss’ Pickles or affiliated with Guss Pickles, but that is not true!” And number five: he thinks the true Guss' Pickles should be located in CEDARHURST!!

I'll keep buying the gerkins on Orchard Street.

Guss' Pickles—Of Brooklyn

This should upset me more than it does.

Lo-Down, via Eater, reports that Guss' Pickles, one of the last old-school, Lower East Side institutions, is moving to Brooklyn. The new location is 39th Street between 14th and 15th Avenues, the Kensington neighborhood "in a few months."

Patricia says she's running out of room and can't afford rent for a bigger space in the neighborhood since it's changed so much. When the city put a Muni Meter directly in front of her pickle barrels, blocking customers' access, it was the last straw.

I'd like Guss' to stay on the LES, where it's always been. But I have to admit that I don't mind the shift. As long as the place stays in business. After all, Guss' has been quite the same Guss' for some time. The business has changed hands a couple times since Izzy Guss retired, most recently to Patricia Fairhurst. And there was the move from the old location on Essex to the newer, less charming one on Orchard. Throw in the whole tangled dispute involving the rights to the Guss name, and you have to wonder aloud: "What difference does a move to Brooklyn make at this point?" It's like hanging a picture with a few cracks in it on a different wall.

Besides, a place with a name like Guss' pickles sounds like it belongs in Brooklyn.

See Guss Go

Bowery Boogie has pictures of the final exodus of Lower East Side mainstay Guss' Pickles. Sad, sad, sad.

Yesterday afternoon, we stopped by Guss’ Pickles for the weekly regimen of delicious full sours. Outside the tiny storefront, owner Patricia Fairhurst was busy with a handtruck, unloading boxes of Ball jars and latex gloves onto the sidewalk. It was a somber sight and a brief scare all rolled into one. However, Fairhurst assured us that customers still have the rest of this month to stockpile their most favorite pickled treats. In the interim, Guss’ will be gradually moving to its new diggs in Brooklyn.

To review how Lost City feels about this development, read here.

Lost City's Guide to the Lower East Side

Better take this tour quick. Anything that even resembles history in the Lower East Side is disappearing faster that Bloomberg's scruples. Some destinations, like Gertel's Bakery and the First Roumanian-American Congregation Synagogue, were lost only recently. Start on Houston Street, the northern border of the LES. Strangely enough, some of the best things left in the neighborhood are on this busy strip.

YONAH SCHIMMEL KNISHES: Amazing this place is still here, given it rents, not owns. Only joint in Manhattan that I know that specializes in the ur-NY delicacy, the knish. And they're pretty good, if you get them on a good day. The store's been here since 1910 and given the grumpiness of the help, it seems like they've been working straight since then. Check out the dumb waiter; it leads to a basement brick oven where the knishes are baked.

RUSS & DAUGHTERS: Two blocks east and four years younger, this "appetizing" store is as sleek and clean as Schimmel is creaky and dusty. An apt business model on how to honor tradition and stay contemporary simultaneously. The place gleams white with mouth-watering promise. For smoked fish and other bagel toppings, lower Manhattan has no match. But most anything's a good bet here.

KATZ'S DELI: The third business in the Olde Lower East Triumvirate completed by Yonah and Russ. The sprawling, byzantine, wondrous 121-year-old Katz's isn't just a good Jewish deli; it's a place like no other on the planet. The ticket-taking payment system is used by no one else in the City. The walls are living histories of ancient signage, past celebrity visitations and aged decor. Each counterman is a character with a sense of pride and a way of doing things. The meats are expensive, but a dog, fries and a Dr. Brown's will get you out cheaply. And whatever you do, Don't Lose Your Ticket!


ECONOMY CANDY: Turn down Essex Street, walk to Rivington and turn right. Wonder where all the candy in the world comes from? It comes from this place! Bursting with every sort of treat ever invented, from the low brow to the high end, and many you've probably forgotten about. In business since 1937.

STREIT'S MATZO FACTORY: Turn around and walk west a couple blocks. One of the older holdouts of what was once a Jewish stronghold, the Streit's factory and store at Rivington and Suffolk Streets has been here since 1925. (Shapiro's used to be right next door.) Most Streit's matzo are produced elsewhere, but this factory still turns out a fraction of the output, kept on mainly for tradition's sake. The factory's been put on the market, so don't depend of the matzo makers to be here forever. While you're here, look across the street at the imposing neo-Gothic P.S. 160 and imagine being an immigrant kid going there 100 years ago. Intimidating much?

ESSEX MARKET: Return to Essex Street. One of the last of the working indoor markets that were created in New York during the Depression. It's still a vibrant place of business with old-time green grocers alongside hoity-toity artisanal cheesemongers, as well as ancient kosher winemaker Shapiro's last foothold in the nabe. Plus a nook to house chef Kenny Shopsin's eccentricities. Roam, browse, eat.


KOSSAR'S BIALYS: Turn south on Essex and walk to Grand. Like Schimmel, Kossar's is a relic of a specialist. Bialys? Who does that anymore? They make bagels, too, but the onion-flecked bialys are works of art. The interior is just this side of a working factory (which it is), with wooden palettes, metal racks and flour everywhere. Too bad about the new character-free awning.

MIKVAH: Walk further west down Grand to where the street meets East Broadway. Here there is a Dutch-style building. Inside is a Mikvah, a ritualized bath used by Orthodox Jewish women once a month—one of the few such in the City.

BIALYSTOKER SYNAGOGUE: On your way back to Essex, turn right up Willet to take in this ancient, roughly beautiful 1928 house of worship, once a Methodist Episcopal Church. It looks so old, it might have been deposited here by a glacier millions of years ago.

FORWARD BUILDING: Walk all the way down Essex to East Broadway and gaze up at the majesty of the old Jewish Daily Forward newspaper building. The towering structure used to be a mess, but has now been shined up due to a condo conversion.

ELDRIDGE STREET SYNAGOGUE: Jog a few blocks east to Eldridge, between Division and Canal. There is arguably no house of worship more impressive than the flamboyant Moorish structure colloquially known as the Eldridge Street Synagogue. Built in 1886, it is slowly, bit by bit, being restored. Even in its half-finished state, it is awe inspiring, particular the large circular stained-glass window in the facade. It's open to the public most days; check times beforehand.

GUSS' PICKLES: Skip two blocks west to Orchard, and walk north towards Broome Street to find one of the last, and the oldest, picklemonger in the area. The old business used to be on Essex, and its story used to be a lot simpler. Now there's a war between this shop and one of Long Island as to who truly carries on the torch of the original Guss. Nevermind that. This Guss' is here, not in (ahem) Cederhurst, and the pickles barrels are filled with treats.

LOWER EAST SIDE TENAMENT MUSEUM: Walk up Orchard near Delancey to get an idea how life was (hard, punishing, many steps) for the original LES immigrants with a tour of this fine and compact museum.


MAX FISH/PINK PONY/THE HAT RESTAURANT: For the final block before getting back to Houston, use Ludlow Street, where, for a trip back to more recent LES history—the 1980s and 1990s—you'll find the well-preserved trio of the good-time bar Max Fish, cafe The Pink Pony and cheapo Mexican eatery El Sombrero ("The Hat"). Squint your eyes and you can easily imagine how the nabe's first wave of boho hipsters lived before they were priced out.

Lost City's Guide to Carroll Gardens
Lost City's Guide to Times Square

More About Gertel's; Guss's in Danger?

An article in the New York Sun provide a wealth of interesting information about Gertel's Bakery (RIP), the great kosher bake shop which closed its Lower East Side retail branch today.

Abe Stern, the owner, owned the building, it turns out. So he was in not danger from some greedy landlord. He chose to sell the building to a developer, netting $2.9 million.

Stern is not a descendant of the original owners. It was founded by Izzy Gerber. Gerber, not Gertel. The shop was named after his son-in-law. (That was some loving father-in-law.) It then changed hands twice. Then there was this horrifying tidbit:

Last month, the building where Guss's is located was purchased for $16.5 million, according to PropertyShark.com, though plans for the property, at the corner of Orchard and Broome streets, are not yet known.

Yikes! Russ and Daughters, on the other hand, owns its building and seems to want to stay.

I ate my final Gertel's challah tonight. It was yummy.

Some Stuff That's Interesting

Guss' Pickles of (ahem) Cedarhurst and Russ' Daughters may collaboration. At least Guss' hopes so. (Russ, not so much.) I guess he finally figured out that hanging out a shingle with a classic Lower East Side name in Cedarhurst doesn't really play, authenticity-wise. [Grub Street]

There is now a "Save Ray's" clothing line. So, when's the reality show airing? [EV Grieve]

The Russian Orthodox Cathedral of the Holy Virgin Martyr Protection (Yeesh, what a name!) is on the calendar for landmarking. You mean it wasn't landmarked already? The thing is 143 years old! [Bowery Boogie]

Brooklyn developers continue to lie that the Gowanus Canal's Superfund designation is costing them business, not other things like the bad economy and the fact that the canal is freaking poisonous and has been for decades and no one would want to live next to it. [NY Post]

NYU construction swallows up "preserved" Provincetown Playhouse. Swine. [Curbed]

A "giant roped by Lilliputians." [Restless]

A profile Lana's Barber Shop on Henry Street. I go there. So does Daily News columnist Stanley Crouch, for the record. [The Carroll Gardens Diary]

Guss' Pickles, Back in the Day

A faithful reader sent in this shot of Guss' Pickles, taken when the shop was still on Essex Street, in the 1990s, long before all the turmoil that is sending the timeless shop out to Brooklyn, far away from its roots and true name.

Buy That Building!

I was strolling around the Lower East Side this past weekend with my wife. We were pointing out some unorthodox (read: not in Midtown) tourist sights to some visiting friends from Italy. While doing so, we made brief stops at two cherished vestiges of the old LES: Yonah Schimmel's Knishery on Houston and Guss' Pickles on Orchard Street.

When I visit such landmark businesses, I can never hold back from asking the One Essential Question: Do you own the building? This is the key to survival in our vicious, ahistorial real estate market. If you're a lowly renter, you can be kicked onto the the sidewalk at any moment (see McHale's, Second Avenue Deli, CBGB's). Own the building and you can stay in business as long as someone in the family is willing to get up at the crack of dawn to "make the donuts," as it were. (This is also essential. The great South Brooklyn salumenia Lattacini Barese, founded in 1927, owned its Union Street building. But when owner Joe Balzano had a heart attack, neither of his sons were keen on rising each morn to make the fresh mozzarella. They sold the building in 2002. It's a real estate office now—natch.)

In both cases, the answer was depressing. Yonah Schimmel's doesn't own the the old tenement in which they're housed. "Chinese!," the counter woman gruffly replied. The woman behind the pickle barrels at Guss' laughed at the notion of ownership. This is bad news for anyone who wants Manhattan to have at least one shop turning out, as a specialty, knishs and pickles—two foods any self-respecting burg calling itself New York City should always produce.

This Week on Lost City

Trouble and turmoil at the Rat-Squirrel House; Guss' Pickles Is Moving to Brooklyn, and Without Its Name; The South Brooklyn Bike Thieves Were Caught (Two of Them, Anyway); The Riddle of President Street Unraveled; Irving Place, We Hardly Knew Ye; Fifth Avenue Cast-Iron Job Gets Spruced Up.

This Week on Lost City

An 86-Year-Old Locksmith in Park Slope; Frankie & Johnnie's Bar Still in The Works; O'Connor's Lost Its Awning; My Parents Down Like the High Line, and Readers Don't Like My Parents; Inside a Lost Tiki Restaurant in Jackson Heights; Guss' Pickles Leaves the Lower East Side; More Revelations on Carroll Gardens Corner of Mystery.

There Is No Longer a Place Called Guss' Pickles on the Lower East Side

However you feel about the crazy legal battles that have raged over the past couple years, this is not a happy development.

Bring Out Your Dead! 2010 Roundup of Lost New York Landmarks

As in every year of the Bloomberg administration, 2010 was a bad one for preservation-minded New Yorkers. There were a couple major restaurant losses in Gino and Fedora, cultural signposts of their time and neighborhoods that can never be brought back now that they're gone. Otherwise, the two biggest victims of this final year of the first decade of this depressing century were Coney Island and New York's dive bars. The seaside playland continues to be the most maliciously punished neighborhood in the City, wrung of all history and character and dignity by the twin evils of City Hall and Joe Sitt. Meanwhile, crusty old taverns who patronize the kind of people who used to live in New York by the drove, but are now being forced out by escalating rents, are dropping left and right. Mars Bar, Ruby's Bar & Grill, Max Fish, Rum House, you name it.

Gone, Baby, Gone

Gino, the 65-year-old, Upper East Side red sauce club with the crazy zebra wallpaper and devoted clientele, threatened to close and threatened to close for years, and this year finally did. A heartbreaking loss.
Fedora, unlike Gino, chose to retire after after decades of service to her eponymously named subterranean Village restaurant. Gabe Stuhlman, a local hotshot restauranteur, bought the lease and promised to keep the name and some of the interior. But it won't ever be the same. In fact, he didn't preserve the old neon sign, he replicated it.
Carmine's at the Seaport, a bedrock South Street Seaport business, closes after 107 years.
Empire Diner, yet another of the City's few remaining stand-alone diners goes belly-up.
Cono & Sons O'Pescatore Restaurant, a remnant of pre-hipster Williamsburg and political gathering place.

Read more »