A Hidden Lower East Side

           It’s Ash Wednesday, and the Lower East Side will reportedly be giving up another cultural holdout, Moishe’s Kosher Bake Shop on 2nd Ave. Moishe’s is rumored to have started on Houston in the late 1960’s before moving to its location at 115 Second Avenue in the mid-70’s, meaning that it has been in operation for close to 50 years in one form or another. While Moishe Perl seems to have indicated to various people that the business is closed, by the time I got to Moishe’s myself a little while ago, brown paper covered the windows and door, and a sign placed in the window read “Closed for renovation, reopen as soon as possible, special order please call owner (347) 203-9842”. When I called the number, Moishe  Perl picked up the phone, but wouldn't give a clear answer to what the future of the building was before the call cut out.        The last interaction I had with Moishe was at the end of last week when I stopped b...

As we say goodbye to St. Mark's Comics this month, one of the last older businesses on the block in their original location (having been at 11 St. Mark's for 36 years), I fear a similar fate will soon meet two other neighborhood institutions currently in their own precarious states.  The first is Moishe's Bake Shop, opened by Moishe Pearl in 1974, only a couple years after the Fillmore East closed its doors down the block, and Ratner's Restaurant still held court in the Saul Birns building (in what would become Met Foods before being forced out by NYU). Besides Economy Candy, Moishe's remains the only other stop for sweets from my childhood still standing, and one of two kosher Jewish bakery in the LES. When I heard the news this past December that the building had been sold, I was devastated. Although investor Jay Schwimmer's lease for the property begins in March, there's still no concrete information as to what will happen with Moishe's Bake...