Rumor: Sammy’s Roumanian Closes Chrystie Street Dining Room
Jan. 2016
It certainly isn’t a happy new year here on the Lower East Side if rumors prove true that Sammy’s Roumanian is closed for good.
The Chrystie Street restaurant closed back in mid-March with the rest of the city during the initial pandemic lockdown. And now it appears they didn’t survive.
Photographers James and Karla Murray noted on Instagram that all the photographs and ephemera hanging in the entrance and on those storied walls were gone.
In operation since 1975, the kosher-style steakhouse was known for its boisterous dining room. From the beginning, when Saturday Night Live stars were known to frequent. “Sammy’s is still loudly, raucously, endlessly, embracingly Jewish, a permanent underground bar mitzvah where Gentiles can act like Jews and Jews can act like themselves,” The New York Times noted back in 2014.
I never got to go to Sammy's Roumanian. Every time I passed the place, I'd tell myself to go before it's too late. And now, we hear, it's too late and I'm kicking myself, the way I knew I would.
— Jeremiah Moss 🌹 (@jeremoss) January 2, 2021
Recent Stories
Opposition Mounts Against Public Hotel Garden Revamp on Chrystie Street
The 28-story Public Hotel hopes to reconfigure its garden area along Chrystie Street. Neighbors are not having it. Posters in the immediate vicinity display the opposition to the liquor license modification. Claiming that the new garden format would be an “open air eating and drinking playground for the rich.” According to materials submitted to the […]
Developer to Close Lands End II Parking Lot by Month End for New 700-Foot Towers
Not two months after the Appellate Court overturned community lawsuits stopping the Two Bridges mega-developments, one of said projects is now moving forward. Tenants of the Lands End II housing complex were informed, via letter, that the rear parking lot will close by the end of April to make way for the 700-foot megatowers by […]
An Art Show to Benefit the Educational Alliance
A new art exhibit to support the Educational Alliance and its Manny Cantor Center kicks off this weekend. Drawing inspiration from the recently-deposed Hester Street Fair, “CONTINUE TO BE” is a celebratory show welcoming the warmth and hope of springtime in the city, featuring both new and old work from local photographers who have documented life […]
Clayton’s Corner: Shine a Light on the Dark
Since the outset of the coronavirus pandemic, nights are especially dark on the streets of the Lower East Side. Fewer businesses, less activity, less overall light. In this latest installment of Clayton’s Corner, the neighborhood documentarian shines a light on the darkness.
City Officially Breaks Ground on $1.45B East Side Coastal Resiliency Project
After an initial delay, the contested $1.45 billion East Side Coastal Resiliency Project is set to break ground in the coming days. All against a backdrop of legal filings and vociferous community opposition. “Building a recovery for all of us means fighting climate change and investing in resilient communities,” Mayor de Blasio stated in a […]
