The MTA is teaming up with Upper West Side grocery institution Zabar’s to hawk black-and-white cookies and bagels with schmear to celebrate two milestone birthdays.
The New York City Subway will celebrate its 120th birthday on Oct. 27, while Zabar’s, the massive grocer at 80th Street and Broadway, hits the big 90 this year. With the subway so integral to the development of the Upper West Side and, by extension, Zabar’s, the two institutions decided to celebrate their birthday together this year.
“You have two major institutions that are celebrating a birthday of sorts. What if they did it together?” said Demetrius Crichlow, interim president of MTA New York City Transit. “And so we said, this would be a great collaboration, to the extent of Run DMC and Aerosmith.”
On Oct. 22, Zabar’s will branch out of its long-time West Side home and hand out its vaunted black-and-white cookies to commuters at four subway stations in the Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Queens.
Then, from Oct. 24 until the big birthday on Oct. 27, Zabar’s will offer a “commuter special” for the morning rush from 8 a.m. to 11 a.m., offering a bagel with schmear for just $1.20, wrapped in a subway-themed paper. Prices increase to $2.90 with the addition of coffee and $9.90 with lox.
Normally, those would cost $4.34, $5.32, and $19.47, respectively.
Zabar’s has also been selling coffee for 90 cents this month in honor of its birthday. The store was founded in 1934 by Louis and Lillian Zabar, in its spot right above the 79th Street station on the No. 1 line, and for four successive generations, has served the neighborhood with high-quality coffee, fresh bagels, and smoked fish, and fine artisanal cheeses, among other things. The company sells up to 4,000 pounds of smoked fish and 8,000 pounds of coffee each week.
The history of Zabar’s has been intertwined with the No. 1 train and the rest of the subway, said Stanley Zabar, the 92-year-old son of Louis and Lillian Zabar.
“The No. 1 train here at 79th Street was the most important part of my life,” said Stanley Zabar. “And I want to tell you, they’ve always ran very well and I’m very happy with it, uptown and downtown.”
Meanwhile, Stanley’s 96-year-old brother Saul recalled the bygone time when the neighborhood was crisscrossed by trolleys, including those running in the median of Broadway.
Like much of the city, the Upper West Side became what it is today because rapid transit allowed New York City to expand far beyond its original reach.
“This neighborhood is where it is because of the subway,” said Concetta Bencivenga, director of the New York Transit Museum. “Most of us know that on good days the subway will get you from point A to point B. But what a lot of people don’t think about is that the subway actually creates place, like the Upper West Side or, if you don’t believe me, like Hudson Yards, which used to be a rail station and now is an entire neighborhood.”
The first underground subway line opened on Oct. 27, 1904, with service run by the Interborough Rapid Transit company through 28 stations between City Hall downtown and 145th Street in Harlem, along the present-day 4/5/6 and 1/2/3 lines. 150,000 people turned out to pay the 5-cent fare and ride the train underground.
To celebrate the milestone birthday, the Transit Museum is hosting a new exhibit called “The Subway Is.” The exhibit will showcase the centrality of the subway to life in the Big Apple and the many ways the system is meaningful to New Yorkers.
The museum will also host “nostalgia rides” on old-timey trains, specifically the Lo-V model from 1917, along the system’s original route, on Oct. 27 and on Nov. 16.
