Zabar's

2243 Broadway | also 2241 Broadway | Upper West Side | built 1920

Open on the map10 entries

The lot about 1940
About 1940. Via 1940s.nyc
The lot about 1985
About 1985. Via 80s.nyc

The city photographed every building for its tax records around 1940 and again in the 1980s. NYC Municipal Archives.

Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.

  1. 1882

    Christian Blinn builds four brick dwellings with stores at Broadway and 80th Street

    In 1882 the developer Christian Blinn built four three-story brick-faced dwellings with stores on the northeast corner of Broadway and 80th Street, numbered 2241 through 2247. He sold the four properties to Julia Schwartz in 1890. She made individual renovations to each of them from 1900 through 1918, before embarking on a much larger project in 1919.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  2. 1919

    Julia Schwartz turns four old houses into a half-timbered Tudor apartment block

    In June 1919 Julia Schwartz announced a $50,000 plan to convert the row at 2241 to 2247 Broadway into apartments, hiring the architects B. H. & C. N. Whinston. They gave the old dwellings a stuccoed English look with half-timbering, Juliet balconies and quirky gables; Architecture magazine called the result interesting but somewhat exotic. The ground floor was let to the C. & L. Lunch Company for 21 years, and the upper floors became the Calvin Apartments.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  3. 1930

    January 25

    Four bandits hold up the C. & L. restaurant in the Tudor block

    Early on January 25, 1930, four bandits with drawn revolvers held up the manager and eight patrons of the C. & L. restaurant at 2245 Broadway. Newspapers reported that $200 was taken from the till and another $200 in money and jewelry from the customers. When a man and a woman walked in during the robbery, they were lined up against the wall too, and a diamond ring and $60 were taken from them.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  4. 1941

    Louis Zabar opens the Zabar Super Market where a lunch restaurant stood

    In 1941 the Zabar Super Market replaced the C. & L. Restaurant at 2245 Broadway. Louis Zabar was running eight grocery stores by then and used this location as the chain's headquarters. Over the following years the shop focused less on plain groceries and more on specialty foods.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  5. 1941

    September 25

    Louis Zabar is fined and sentenced after pleading guilty to price-ceiling violations

    On September 25, 1941, Louis Zabar was among several grocers called before three magistrates in Municipal Term Court over Office of Price Administration violations. According to the New York Post, he pleaded guilty to 19 charges of failing to post ceiling prices and 25 of charging above the ceiling. Magistrate Ramsgate gave him the heaviest penalty of the day, a $1,055 fine and 24 days' imprisonment.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  6. 1966

    Beck's Drug Store closes at 2243 Broadway and Zabar's takes over the row's leases

    Beck's Drug Store, which occupied 2243 Broadway by the early 1960s, closed in 1966. Zabar's took over the leases of the row's shops one by one as they shut. Its storefront eventually stretched along the entire row, including the shop in the neighboring building at 2249 Broadway, though the unified storefront pays no homage to the Tudor design above it.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  7. 1974

    March 12

    A man is found dead and unclothed on the roof of the Center Hotel above Zabar's

    The upper floors of the building had been renovated in 1949 as the 18-room Center Hotel. On March 12, 1974, the nude body of a 38-year-old man who lived in the hotel was found on its roof. The New York Times reported that police saw no visible signs of violence and ordered an autopsy, and the Daytonian history of the building calls the case a bizarre mystery.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  8. 1998

    You've Got Mail sets a shopping scene at Zabar's

    The 1998 film You've Got Mail includes a scene set at Zabar's in which Kathleen Kelly, played by Meg Ryan, and Joe Fox, played by Tom Hanks, run into each other while shopping. The store turns up elsewhere on screen as a New York reference, in sitcoms such as Mad About You, where its orange bag is visible, and in Aaron Sorkin's shows.

    “The 1998 film You've Got Mail features a scene set at Zabar's where Kathleen Kelly (Meg Ryan) and Joe Fox (Tom Hanks) run into each other while shopping.”

    Source: Wikipedia

  9. 2011

    Zabar's lobster salad turns out to contain no lobster

    In 2011 it emerged that a Zabar's product labeled Lobster Salad actually contained no lobster. According to the New York Times, the store sold a spread of mostly salted crawfish and mayonnaise for $16.95 a pound. Saul Zabar at first defended the name, noting that Wikipedia described crawfish as related to lobsters. The store later relabeled the spread Zabster Zalad.

    “In 2011, it was found that Zabar's was selling product labeled as "Lobster Salad" that actually contained no lobster.”

    Source: Wikipedia

  10. 2019

    Jonah Hill directs a Vampire Weekend music video among Zabar's shoppers

    In early 2019 the band Vampire Weekend shot a music video at Zabar's with the actor Jonah Hill directing. Gothamist covered the shoot on February 7, 2019, reporting that ordinary shoppers kvetched as the crew worked around them, and called it a peak Upper West Side moment.

    Source: gothamist.com

Further reading

Nearby

All 64 buildings with stories in Upper West Side