Carnegie Deli Then and Now — a Timeline
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More than a month after being , the Carnegie Deli remains closed. To tide us over until we can once again gorge on its overstuffed corned beef sandwiches, we decided to pull together a timeline of important events in the iconic establishment’s history.
1937: Carnegie Deli opens in midtown Manhattan, on 7th Avenue and 55th Street, across from Carnegie Hall.
1976: Leo Steiner, Milton Parker and Fred Klein buy the restaurant from the original owners. That same year, to celebrate America’s Bicentennial, Steiner fashions a 60-pound Statue of Liberty out of chopped liver, complete with turkey-wing torch.
1979: The New York Times deems Carnegie Deli’s pastrami better than arch competitor Stage Deli’s, touching off “the Pastrami War,” according to articles that ran at the time.
1984: Carnegie Deli is featured in several scenes in Woody Allen’s film Broadway Danny Rose.
1988: The deli adds knishes to its menu after staging a knish-eating contest.
2002: Milton Parker retires, and ownership and management go to his daughter, Marian Levine, and son-in-law, Sanford Levine.
March 26, 2012: Carnegie Deli shows its support for the New York Jets’ new quarterback, Tim Tebow, by introducing the Jetbow sandwich. It’s a $22.22 meat trifecta of corned beef, pastrami and roast beef topped with lettuce, tomato and American cheese on white bread.
October 2013: An alleged affair between Sandy Levine and a waitress living in an apartment above the deli causes Marian Levine to sue her husband on the grounds that Sandy slipped his lover trade secrets and a deal on rent.
September 29, 2014: Carnegie Deli comes out with a limited edition sandwich, the Derek Jeter Triple Club, in honor of Jeter’s retirement from baseball. The club consists of turkey, bacon, American cheese, tomato and lettuce on a toasted white bread.
March 11, 2015: Carnegie’s corned beef gets the No. 8 spot on New York radio station 1010 WINS’ Iconic Food list.
April 2015: The deli is temporarily shut down after Con Ed inspectors find the restaurant has been using a piece of pipe to siphon off gas before it reaches the meter. Con Ed reports that after six years of employing this method, the restaurant owes the gas company $40,050.
June 2015: The restaurant remains closed. The entire building has been without gas or hot water since the beginning of the gas-siphoning investigation. The restaurant is currently under construction and plans to reopen.
February 9, 2016: Carnegie Deli announces that it has re-opened for business.
September 30, 2016: Second-generation owner Marian Harper Levine tells her staff that the deli will close at the end of the year.
This article has been updated to reflect events that occurred after it was originally published.
Jean Hanks is the Forward’s food intern.
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