Goodbye, deli: It’s the ‘biter’ end at Carnegie
Woody eats his heart out as Carnegie closing marks the end of an era
LONG before the publicity-savvy owners named a gut-busting pastrami-and-corned-beef sandwich after him, a struggling Woody Allen found a comforting refuge in the Carnegie Deli as he honed his comedic chops.
“I used to eat at the Carnegie long before I became a comedian because the food was delicious, and in those days, I had no fear of eating corned beef, pastrami or any other things that now I feel would destroy my life,” the 81-year-old filmmaker told The Post about the Big Apple landmark, which will serve up its last meal on Friday night.
It was the ’50s and early ’60s, and Allen wasn’t the only one seeking solace in the snappy late-night patter and fragrant pleasures of smoked meats, chopped liver and latkes at the classic Jewish deli on Seventh Avenue at 55th Street, near Carnegie Hall.
“It was a great place to sit around and talk with other comedy writers,” Allen said.
Even after he became a wildly successful writer, stand-up comic and director, the atmosphere — and the mouth-watering menu — kept him coming back.
ALLEN immortalized his love affair with the deli when he used it as the setting for much of the 1984 comedy “Broadway Danny Rose” — in which he played a fast-talking but hapless talent agent who pretended to date a character named Tina, played by Mia Farrow.
Allen’s character regaled a gang of fellow showbiz types gathered at the deli with the tale of how Tina, a former mob moll, was dating one of his clients.
“I got to eat there all the time and was able to rationalize it because I was working there, even though I knew how bad it was for me,” Allen said.
“So when I was working there and work necessitated that I eat there all the time, I was able to get past my guilt over that amount of pleasure in that short of space.”
Allen was far from the only celeb to nosh at Carnegie over the years; the walls are covered with scores of framed shots of politicians, sports heroes, actors, performers and others too numerous to mention.
Celebs like Henry Kissinger, Meryl Streep, Bob Fosse, Warren Beatty and John Glenn plus many others stopped in over the years for a bite.
Henny Youngman, the king of one-liners, was a regular and eulogized coowner Leo Steiner on his death in 1987 as “the deli lama.” In fact, Steiner’s service was more of a yuckfest than a time for tears.
“Whaddya mean, ‘Is chicken soup good for you?’
You ever see a chicken with a cold?” Steiner cracked on a videotape that was shown during the memorial.
Steiner and two partners, Fred Klein and Milton Parker, bought the Carnegie in 1976 from the original owners, who had run it since 1937.
Parker — known as the Chief Pastrami Maven — was known for starting every workday by chowing down on a foot-long frank.
‘ALL good things come to an end,” current owner Marian Harper, Parker’s daughter, said recently over a bittersweet lunch of The Woody and the equally artery-clogging $29 Reuben — about two pounds of meat, sauerkraut and melted Swiss cheese.
“I’ve been here since the day my father took over,” she told The Post. “I started as a cashier.”
Her decision to close and concentrate on the brand’s other locations, wholesale and mail-order operations was not an easy one. But after a tough couple of years that included a well-publicized divorce, a temporary closure due to utility problems and a suit by staffers claiming they were underpaid, she felt the time had come.
Carnegie satellites will remain open at Madison Square Garden, the Mirage Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas and the Sands Casino Resort in Bethlehem, Pa., Harper noted.
“It’s like a second home,” she said, breaking into a brief shimmy as Barry Manilow’s 1977 hit “It’s Just Another New Year’s Eve” played on the sound system.
SCORES of old-timers and regulars have flocked to the deli since the closure was announced earlier this year — including Allen, who had a final dinner there with his wife, Soon-Yi, friends and Harper’s daughter, Sarri, in November.
Despite his short stature and frail frame, the man can apparently pack it away. The order for the table included, among other items, latkes, cole slaw, gefilte fish, chopped liver, the massive Reuben, knockwurst, a beef-tongue sandwich, pickles — and cheesecake.
And The Woody is not the only sandwich named after a celeb. Limited-edition specialty sandwiches were also named for George H.W. Bush, Ross Perot and Derek Jeter, among others.
THE secret of the deli’s success — famed critic Mimi Sheraton called its pastrami sandwich the Big Apple’s best in 1979 — is the meticulous preparation of its meat.
The corned beef, for instance, begins as a full-cut shoulder brisket, weighing 20 to 24 pounds. The brisket is abundantly infused with flavorful brine, placed in a brine-filled barrel and refrigerated for a week.
Finally, the corned beef is boiled for 3¹/2 to four hours and then brought straight to the deli counter, where the fat is trimmed and the meat is sliced and piled high on rye bread.
The prep work clearly pays off — as lines of tourists and New Yorkers who make regular pilgrimages to the shrine of Jewish cuisine often stretch down the block.
“For me, any food is good for me in direct proportion to how pleasureless it is,” Allen said. “The food at the Carnegie had to be bad for me because it was ecstatically pleasurable.”