Russ & Daughters

by Mark Russ Federman

  With the housing projects bursting at the seams and no money available for any kind of new construction, during the 1970s and ’80s few people moved into the neighborhood by choice. As always, it was housing of last resort. With one interesting exception. The young artists, writers, and musicians who had been priced out of Greenwich Village as it became gentrified and went from an affordable counterculture space to an expensive yuppie neighborhood began to scout out the Lower East Side. Attracted by the cheap rent in the tenements and the few run-down brownstones that were still habitable, they were also intrigued by the neighborhood’s edgy lifestyle. Small stirrings of commerce began to be seen. Hilly Kristal loved to come by to treat himself to bagels and lox and schmooze with me about the evolving local music scene. In 1973 he had turned his Bowery bar into CBGB, a country, bluegrass, and blues club, but shortly thereafter it morphed into a legendary punk rock mecca.

  In the 1970s you could buy any tenement building on the Lower East Side for $25,000. But no one was buying. Some abandoned tenements were taken over by squatters, who called themselves “urban homesteaders.” In many cases, the squatters did improve their buildings and the immediate surroundings, but their illegal occupancy often led to confrontations with the police and the courts. The most famous was the Tompkins Square riot of 1988. This took place several blocks away from us, but it spilled over into our neighborhood. Rioters raced by our store, yelling, “Die, yuppie scum!” I tried not to take it personally.

  Somehow, I continued to run the store in this environment. I woke up early each morning, slid open the metal gates, made sure the right fish got into the store, saw to it that the employees showed up, and then hoped that customers would, too. Jewish merchants from the neighborhood liked to come in, have a bite to eat, and kvetch about how bad things were. Their children were “established,” and there was no reason for them to continue in business. They’d say, “I need this like a lokh in kup [hole in the head].” Sometimes, as they reached across the counter to take the shtickel herring I offered, a shirtsleeve would ride up, revealing numbers tattooed on a forearm. These neighbors knew about suffering. They could complain to me all they wanted.

  The ’90s: Renaissance and Renovation

  By the mid-1980s, the expanding economy began to bring changes to the equally distressed East Village, the neighborhood of numbered streets just north of Houston Street and west of Alphabet City (as Avenues A through D came to be known during the dark times in the 1970s). Once historically part of the Lower East Side, the East Village had acquired its own real estate appellation in the 1960s as it became the destination of choice for New York’s flower-child population. Buildings were being bought up and gloriously rehabilitated, and young professionals (yes, those notorious “yuppie scum”) were starting to move in. It would take another five to ten years before gentrification began to make any serious inroads on the Lower East Side south of Houston. For a while it appeared to be a race between the Chinese developers, who began moving eastward and northward from Chinatown (with, word on the street had it, “suitcases full of cash”), and developers from outside the neighborhood.

  By the 1990s changes on the Lower East Side were apparent. Max Fish opened on Ludlow Street in 1989, leading the way for a neighborhood bar and club scene, a hangout for local artists, musicians, and writers. It’s now on the verge of closing, its owners unable to afford the skyrocketing rent that this now prime real estate commands.

  Rosario’s Pizza, on East Houston since 1963, lasted as long as it did because of the hard work and long hours proprietors Phillip and Sal Bartolomeo, a father-son team from Sicily, put in. They were forced to leave their forty-year location to make room for fast-food operators. Shastone Monuments, which provided the headstones for many Russ family members at Beth David Cemetery, is now home to the Mercury Lounge, a bar and music venue.

  Perhaps the best time line for understanding the changes in the neighborhood is the story of Ratner’s Dairy Restaurant, a Delancey Street legend. Family owned and operated, Ratner’s traced its roots on the Lower East Side to the early 1900s. By the 1970s, Ratner’s was mostly serving those who had moved away but came back to shop and eat. But by the 1990s there were few Jews living in the neighborhood, and even fewer coming back for a visit. The Harmatz family, third-generation owners of Ratner’s, saw the writing on the wall. They leased out space in the back of the restaurant, which became a trendy pseudo-speakeasy called—with a gangster-chic nod to neighborhood history—Lansky Lounge. (Gangsters Meyer Lansky and Bugsy Siegel were apparently both Ratner’s and Russ & Daughters customers.) As the dairy restaurant business decreased, Lansky’s expanded, taking over more and more of the restaurant space until it occupied all of it and became known as Lansky Lounge and Grill. But ultimately the power of real estate won out, and the Harmatz family sold the property to a developer who built a huge blue steel-and-glass condominium that now somewhat incongruously dominates the Lower East Side skyline.

  Meanwhile, I continued to run Russ & Daughters, somewhat oblivious to what was happening around me. I was, however, very aware that our store—and I—were becoming increasingly old and tired-looking, much like the neighborhood. I had been fearful of making any changes, even minor ones. I was afraid of disappointing or discomfiting the regular customers who expected the store to look and feel a certain way, for each product to be in a particular place in the showcase: chubs in between whitefish and baked salmon, the schmaltz herrings in front of the matjes with rollmops in the middle. It had taken almost two decades for the customers to finally get used to me as the proprietor—even though I was a bona fide third-generation Russ—so I was reluctant to change anything else.

  But by 1995 even I could tell that dramatic changes were under way on the Lower East Side. The store was busier. I would look up from slicing lox and see a well-heeled, well-educated crowd of younger shoppers. Expensive baby strollers replaced old wire shopping carts. These customers didn’t buy many hard candies, but they did purchase fancy hand-dipped chocolates. And along with cream cheese, they also wanted sheep- and goat-milk cheeses to accompany their smoked salmon.

  A renovation of the “candy side” was called for. And while we were at it, the linoleum floor and fluorescent lighting would go. The new candy-side showcase would have to accommodate the new upscale products. But I was determined that the renovation retain the look of a traditional appetizing store on the Lower East Side, and not turn Russ & Daughters into a soulless Upper East Side or SoHo eatery. I hired a business consultant, who in turn hired an architect, who in turn hired an engineer. I insisted that the look and feel of the store not change, and that all of the work, from beginning to end, take place within the two-week period when we would be closed for summer vacation. We achieved the desired results in almost the allotted time frame. It turns out, however, that making something look old costs twice as much as making it look new.

  Having successfully renovated part of the store, why not renovate the entire building? It only took another five years and a lot of pressure from my wife to get started. Maria, like Grandpa Russ, believed in the power of real estate. But emptying the building of its residents, all of whom were our employees and their families, took time. For the previous twenty years, I had allowed some of our employees to live in the building, in the apartments above the store, almost rent-free but paying for heat. This arrangement worked for everyone. I had happy employees who didn’t have to spend time and money commuting. (And there were no excuses that the subways were delayed.) They were so happy with the deal that they heeded the part of the Bible that commands “Be fruitful and multiply.” Soon they and their families went from occupying a few apartments to occupying a few floors to eventually occupying the entire building. It was part of the deal that when I decided to renovate the building, they would have to move. Helping them relocate took several years.

  The renovation was estimated at a cost of a million dollars, including a 10 percent cost overrun to do additional work that would preserve some
of the building’s historic details. The federal government had just declared the Lower East Side a National Trust historic district. It seems that the Lower East Side has the highest concentration of tenement buildings in the country, and someone who was awake at the federal level recognized that this was worth preserving. There was no mandate to restore historic architectural details, but the feds made a tax credit available for those who chose to participate. Unfortunately, they also created something called the AMT, an acronym for “alternative minimum tax” or, simply put, “Forget about the tax break you thought you had.” Although the tax mathematics didn’t work for me, I opted into the preservation program for emotional reasons. I was born on the Lower East Side, a block away from the store, and I wanted the store to remain part of its history. I couldn’t bring myself to follow the trend of faux-marble façades that was all the rage.

  The building renovation took two years and was completed in early 2001. We quickly rented the upstairs apartments to bankers, designers, and even a supermodel, who paid rents that would have been unimaginable to my grandfather and my parents, aunts, and uncles. After the horrific tragedy of September 11, 2001, several of our tenants lost their jobs or their desire to live in New York City, and they moved. To keep the remaining tenants and to replace those who left, we reduced rents and gave concessions.

  It took a few years for the city to recover from 9/11. But when it did, the neighborhood began to experience a housing shortage and a building boom unlike anything we had ever seen. The Lower East Side was just too perfectly situated between uptown and downtown. The vision Grandpa Russ and his cronies had of the Lower East Side as a fancy-schmancy neighborhood was, more than half a century later, finally realized: high-rise condominiums, refurbished brownstones, boutique hotels, art galleries, designer clothing shops, national chain stores, and trendy restaurants have taken over the neighborhood.

  These days, when visiting the store I often sit on the bench outside and take in the neighborhood. In the little park across the street where junkies and dealers did their business, kids play on swings and jungle gyms or run through the sprinklers while their mommies or daddies watch over them with one eye and read on their iPads with the other. The people who now use this park and live in this neighborhood are media consultants, graphic and fashion designers, computer experts, and bankers. They are celebrities and wealthy businesspeople who can afford to live anywhere they want, but they live in our little corner of the world. It turns out that I was right after all: uptown has moved downtown. With a vengeance. The Lower East Side, for more than one hundred years the place everyone wanted to leave, has become a place where people want to come to settle—if they can afford it. Somewhere, Grandpa Russ is smiling.

  Egg Cream

  SERVES 1

  ½ cup chilled whole milk

  ¾ cup or more chilled seltzer

  3 to 4 tablespoons Fox’s U-Bet chocolate syrup

  Pour the milk into a tall soda or pint glass. Place a long spoon in the glass. Pour enough seltzer into the glass to come 1 inch from the rim (the mixture will foam). Pour the chocolate syrup in the center of the foam and stir until blended. Remove the spoon through the center of the foam.

  Cheese Blintzes

  MAKES 12 TO 14 BLINTZES, ENOUGH FOR 6 PEOPLE

  CREPES

  2 cups whole milk

  4 large eggs

  1⅓ cups all-purpose flour

  FILLING

  1½ pounds farmer’s cheese

  ½ cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar

  1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

  ½ teaspoon cinnamon

  Unsalted butter

  To make the crepes, combine the milk, eggs, and flour in a food processor and process until smooth. Transfer the batter to a bowl and let it rest for 30 minutes. Meanwhile, prepare the filling. Combine the farmer’s cheese, sugar, vanilla, and cinnamon in the work bowl of a food processor and process until smooth. Transfer to another bowl and set aside.

  Melt a pat of butter in a heavy 8-inch nonstick skillet.* Ladle in just enough batter to coat the bottom of the skillet. (Tilt the skillet to coat it evenly.) Allow the crepe to cook undisturbed until it is set and the bottom is golden brown, 3 to 4 minutes. Loosen the crepe around the edges with a spatula and carefully transfer it to a paper-towel-lined plate. Repeat with remaining batter. You should have enough for about 14 crepes.

  Spoon about 4 tablespoons of filling down the center of each crepe. Fold in the short ends and then roll up, burrito-style. Serve the blintzes immediately or rewarm in a 250°F oven.

  * * *

  *It’s very important to use a nonstick skillet!

  6

  The Products

  What We Sell

  When I decided to stop practicing law and go into the family business full-time, I asked my father to teach me how to tell a good fish from a bad fish. “No problem,” he said. “I’ll teach you the same way your grandfather taught me. First, we’ll go to the smokehouses and you’ll watch how I look at, feel, and taste the fish. Then, when we get the fish into the store, you’ll watch how the fish are laid out in the walk-in box so they get the circulating air but are kept free of moisture. You’ll help me select which fish go into the showcase first, always rotating the stock so that first in is first out. Then, when you’re waiting on a customer, you’ll be handling the fish again and you’ll be feeling the texture as you move the knife through it. You’ll offer the customer a taste, but most of the customers will say, ‘You taste it’; they want your assurance that this piece of fish is perfect. Even if only one of their guests complains, you’ll hear about it the following week: ‘What kind of fish did you pick for me last week? Did I have to be embarrassed in front of my company?’ You’ll see how the taste and texture change as you slice up the length of the fish from tail to head. Then, after ten years, maybe you’ll know how to tell a good piece of fish from a bad one.”

  Soon after this conversation took place, my father was forced by ill health to retire. Not long after that, he died. Since I’d had few opportunities to go with him to the smokehouses, I was left on my own to learn how to buy fish from his former cronies, the fish smokers.

  These first-generation Americans joined or took over their family businesses when they returned from duty after World War II. By the time I entered the business in 1978, they had become the old-timers. They walked around their fiefdoms with permanent scowls on their faces and cigars stuffed in their mouths, saying very little. And what they did say was usually designed to intimidate retailers like me.

  Even in the late 1970s, fancy lake sturgeon was in short supply. Since sturgeon feed off the bottoms of rivers and lakes, the fish often has a distinct, unpleasant muddy flavor that remains even when it is smoked. Retailers want only the clean, sweet-tasting fish with lines of yellow fat running through the flesh. These pieces of fish are known as “candy.”

  Jack, the sturgeon keeper at one of our primary suppliers, was a shrewd businessman. To get candy sturgeon I had to plead, beg, and grovel. But even that wasn’t enough. If I wanted twenty pounds of candy sturgeon, I also had to buy one hundred pounds of salmon, whitefish, or whatever other fish he had too much of.

  The wholesale smoked-fish industry, originally the province of German immigrants, became primarily owned and run by Eastern European Jewish immigrants in the 1920s. They made several efforts to bring what were understood to be “American business practices” (i.e., monopolization and restraint of trade) into the industry. When product and market manipulation, price gouging, and the threat of strikes failed, they used coercion, extortion, and other strong-arm tactics to get their way.

  When I was a kid, I would hear at family gatherings the occasional mention of someone called “Lobster.” His name was spoken in the whispered tones usually reserved for a relative recently diagnosed with cancer. Sigmund Einstoss, aka Lobster, was the primary focus of an investigation into the smoked-fish industry by the New York State Attorney General’s office in 1926. It was alleged tha
t he attempted to control the industry by making his competitors join his trade association or be driven out of business. Some who resisted were, in fact, put out of business; others were beaten up. Lobster wound up controlling the supply of smoked fish to distributors and then drove up the prices to retailers by more than 100 percent, sending smoked whitefish from eighteen cents to forty cents a pound. In 1938, a New York State commission charged many of the smoked-fish distributors with using threats, intimidation, and illegal picketing in an attempt to force retailers to buy from their association. In 1944, another investigative commission led to indictments and jail sentences for smokers who had violated wartime price controls. In 1955, a federal criminal indictment and separate antitrust suit was filed against many New York–area smokers who conspired to eliminate competition. Dealing with smokehouses and smokers was a dirty, fishy business in many ways. Still, business had to go on, and Russ & Daughters depended on these suppliers for our products. Several of the defendants in these lawsuits attended my bar mitzvah in 1958.