How New York Pioneered the Lunch Hour

Summary

Podcast Summary: "How New York Pioneered the Lunch Hour"

Podcast: All Of It with Alison Stewart (WNYC)
Date: December 30, 2025
Episode Theme:
An engaging exploration of the rich history and evolving culture of lunch in New York City—how the city shaped modern lunch habits, the places and people that defined the "lunch hour," and the interplay of work, gender, and food in creating NYC’s midday traditions. Guests Rebecca Fetterman (NYPL) and Laura Shapiro (culinary historian) share insights from a celebrated NYPL exhibition, “Lunch Hour NYC,” along with stories, listener calls, and cultural analysis.

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Main Sections:

• The Origins of Lunch in NYC
• Lunch in the 19th and 20th Centuries
• The Power Lunch and Corporate Cafeterias
• Lunchtime Landmarks: Automats, Delis, & Department Stores
• Street Vendors and Lunch on the Go
• Lunch for All: Gender, Class, and Cultural Change
• Lunch in Schools and Kids’ Experience
• Memorable Quotes & Moments
• Recommended NYC Lunch Memories & Spots
• Final Thoughts & Resources

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Origins of Lunch in NYC

• Laura Shapiro opens with the claim that New York “invented lunch as we know it,” noting that the origins are tied to industrialization and the necessity of eating amid busy workdays.
• Quote (Laura Shapiro, 02:26):
  “Lunch is the one meal of the day that is entirely contingent on everything else. And in New York, it's contingent on work.”
• The meal “lunch” started as just "a chunk of something" held in the hand—seen as a snack rather than a formal meal until work patterns changed (Rebecca Fetterman, 03:13).
• By the mid-19th century, as industrialization took hold and work schedules shifted, lunch became established as the midday meal.

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Lunch in the 19th and 20th Centuries

• Speed & Efficiency: Lunch became a “high speed meal”—New Yorkers famously “gobbling something fast” compared to European cities.
  • Quote (Laura Shapiro, 05:00):
    “Lunch is the high speed meal. Americans have always been famous for eating fast and eating on the run.”
• Early lunchrooms featured counter service for quick turnaround; venues posted reminders to not forget hats or umbrellas due to the fast pace (Rebecca, 06:09).
• “New York Quick Lunch” was a typical eatery: run in, grab a quick bite, head back to work.

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Power Lunch and Corporate Cafeterias

• The “businessman’s lunch” or “power lunch” rose mid-20th century—two-hour affairs with drinks, sumptuous meals, and deals being made (Laura, 08:45).
  • Quote:
    “They had the time of their lives. Food is power in a lot of ways… it was really about power.”
• Large companies shaped lunch culture—MetLife, Conde Nast, and tech companies offered varying levels of subsidized or even free in-house lunches to boost loyalty and productivity.
  • MetLife’s cafeteria was highly organized, even tracking dietary restrictions and docking pay for tardiness (Laura, 11:34).
• Callers reflected on cafeteria hierarchies (“1271 Club” at Time Life, subsidized lunches at Bankers Trust) and their effect on workplace culture.

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Lunchtime Landmarks: Automats, Delis, & Department Stores

The Automat

• The Horn & Hardart Automat was NYC’s iconic “automatic restaurant” (1912–1991)—food behind glass, served by inserting a nickel.
  • Quote (Rebecca Fetterman, 13:47):
    “Everybody who went to the automat says it was the most incredible thing…you saw your food and you could pick whatever you wanted.”
  • Automats also served substantial cafeteria fare; nostalgia for the automats endures (Laura, 15:23).

Delis

• Delicatessens emerged mid-19th century within Jewish immigrant communities, offering heaping portions and sandwiches—larger than found elsewhere (“mountainous” Katz’s sandwiches).
  • Quote (Laura Shapiro, 21:59):
    “The mountainous sandwich…is a deli staple, but it’s also an American staple. Americans are famous for having gigantic food portions.”

Department Store Restaurants

• Establishments like “The Birdcage” (Lord & Taylor), Bloomingdale’s tea room, and Schrafft’s were popular, particularly for women seeking safe, comfortable spaces to dine alone or with friends.
  • Schrafft’s “ladies' lunch” and ice cream remembered fondly; eventually tried serving alcohol to retain customers—without success (Laura, 25:05).
• Callers recalled club sandwiches at Lindy’s, matinee lunches at Sardi’s, and date-nut bread with cream cheese at Chock Full O’Nuts (Judy, 27:36).

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Street Vendors and Lunch On the Go

• Street food has been part of the city since its beginnings—pretzel vendors, halal carts, hot dog stands, and more.
  • Pretzel sellers were once considered “least desirable,” due to associations with beer and lower social status, but now are a quintessential element (Rebecca, 23:27).
• The city’s original lunchtime was defined by what “as much food as your hand can hold.”

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Lunch for All: Gender, Class, and Cultural Change

• Lunch was the first meal many children had outside the home.
• Shopping and department store lunches were often gendered spaces, welcoming women during midday hours.
• Workplace culture historically favored men for long restaurant lunches, while women often ate at their desks or ran errands—a precursor to the “sad desk lunch” meme (Rebecca, 26:26).

Women’s Power Lunches

• Women’s clubs and activists broke barriers: eating at Delmonico’s (where women were restricted) and even staging political acts at bars like the Plaza (Laura, 30:21).
• Quote:
  “Lunch was their key to pushing forward and breaking down some of those barriers.”

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Lunch in Schools and Kids’ Experience

• School lunch programs began as reform movements in the early 1900s, responding to widespread childhood hunger and debt (Laura, 28:40).
• Early efforts brought culturally appropriate foods to immigrant children, contributing to nutrition and social integration (Rebecca, 29:36).
• For many kids, school lunch was (and is) the most nutritious meal of the day.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments (with Timestamps)

• “Lunch is the one meal of the day that is entirely contingent on everything else. And in New York, it's contingent on work.”
  — Laura Shapiro (02:26)
• “The original definition of lunch … was as much food as one's hand can hold.”
  — Rebecca Fetterman (03:13)
• “Lunch is the high speed meal. Americans have always been famous for eating fast and eating on the run.”
  — Laura Shapiro (05:00)
• “It was like they'd never seen anything like it…You put in your nickel, you'd turn the dial, and out would come your piece of pie.”
  — Rebecca Fetterman on the Automat (13:47)
• “Food is power in a lot of ways… it was really about power.”
  — Laura Shapiro, on the era of the “power lunch” (08:45)
• Listener, Leslie (26:59):
  “The term lunch break has become sort of ubiquitous, even for people who are working on shift work… I would say to a coworker, 'I'm going on my lunch break,' even though it would be 3:00AM.”

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Listener Highlights: Favorite Lunch Spots

• The Automat (“just the berries!”): Lori, Connecticut (13:15)
• The Birdcage at Lord & Taylor: Trudy, Princeton (19:55)
• Lindy's (club sandwich), Schraff’s, Sardi’s: Jesse, Spring Lake (21:09)
• Chock Full O’Nuts (cream cheese on date-nut bread): Judy, Brooklyn (27:36)
• 1271 Club at Time Life (office hierarchy and aspiration): Robert, Hamilton Square (17:21)
• Street pretzels, Met Museum lunch, Niédx hot dogs, Woolworth’s counter—all mentioned with fond nostalgia.

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Final Thoughts & Resources

• Lunch in New York City is a powerful lens into the city’s social structure, economic changes, gender and ethnic identities, and ongoing process of adaptation and nostalgia.
• The NYPL’s “Lunch Hour NYC” exhibit (2012-2013) remains a touchstone for those interested in lunch history, and the library continues to offer free cultural exhibitions (Rebecca, 32:12).
• Lunch, once a quick hand-held snack, has become a ritual, a social signifier, and a source of deep city pride and identity.

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For more on New York’s culinary, social, and cultural history, visit the NYPL or look up the “Lunch Hour NYC” digital exhibition archive.

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“Lunch is really a reflection of how people live and work, which makes it such an interesting topic for research.”
— Rebecca Fetterman (09:36)

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Hosts:

• Alison Stewart (WNYC “All Of It”)
  Guests:
• Rebecca Fetterman (NYPL Assistant Director, General Humanities Reference)
• Laura Shapiro (Culinary historian, author, and food writer)

Transcript

[A]

You're listening to WNYC and All of It. I'm Alison Stewart. We're winding down the year here at Team all of It. But we have some great conversations in store for you next year. Meaning next week. On Monday, we'll kick off our coverage of America's 250th birthday with a look at what important revolutionary events happened right here in New York and how city residents view independence from Britain. And on Wednesday, we'll talk about where to travel in 2026 because it's never too early to start planning your vacation. And on Thursday, we'll preview NYC Winter Jazz Fest with some live music in Studio 5. That is all in the future. Now let's get this hour started with a look at New York's lunch culture. It is very possible that you are listening to this show during. There was even a short lived podcast here at WNYC which consisted of the hosts eating lunch on the air. It didn't last long, but we are happy to be your lunch buddy today. And for the final hour of our last live show of 2025, we're taking you out to lunch. Later we're going to talk about this trend of fall in New York City schools of being loud at lunch after the cell phone ban. Parents, get ready to call in with your kids if you want to talk about their experience. But for this l we're gonna talk about the lunch culture of New York, the popular spots that have defined the city through different eras. And of course, we wanna hear your memories of lunch during the workday and how lunch has changed over the years. My guests for this conversation are Rebecca Fetterman and Laura Shapiro. They were co curators of a past exhibit at the New York Public Library called Lunch Hour nyc. Rebecca is an assistant director of General Humanity References at the Stephen A. Schwartzman Building of the New York Public Library. Nice to see you.

[B]

Nice to be here.

[A]

And Laura is a culinary historian whose most is called what she Six Remarkable women and the food that tell their stories. Welcome to you as well.

[C]

Thank you.

[A]

All right, Laura, with this exhibit you make the case that in a way, New York invented lunch as we know it. What about the city, its cultural history that created the conditions for lunch?

[C]

Well, we set out to make this point to say that New York invented lunch. Of course, we had a little crisis of conscience. In a way, it's any industrializing city that could claim that credit. But we like to think of it as New York because lunch is the one meal of the day that is entirely contingent on Everything else. And in New York, it's contingent on work. So wherever you are, whenever you came to New York, whatever you're doing here, it is probably a bit of food that happens in the workday.

[A]

When exactly did lunch, as we understand it now form the idea of I'm going to lunch, I'm going to have lunch now?

[B]

Well, the original definition of lunch in early dictionaries was really about a chunk of something or something you eat on the go. It was as much food as one's hand can hold was actually a definition in 1755. And so it was never considered an actual meal really. Dinner was the main meal of the day and lunch was something you took as you needed to to get to the next to the next meal. And then obviously in big cities with industry, you needed to, you couldn't have a big meal in the middle of the day because all of a sudden you were working and you had a time clock and you needed to get back to work to make money. And so people pushed the big meal of the day, dinner toward the end of the day when they were off of work. And then lunch sort of settled in the mid as the midday around the middle of the 19th century.

[A]

Listeners, what's your favorite lunch spot? Call or text us now at 2124-3396-9221-2433 wnyc. It could be a place near the office, a place to have a power lunch, as they say. A spot where you could eat real fast and on the go. Our number is 2124-3396-9221-2433 wnyc. Maybe you'd like to go the automat.

[B]

Back in the day.

[A]

What was your favorite item to get there? Tell us lunch spot in New York, past or present. Or even how your lunch habits have changed over the years. Covid changed it a big way. 2124-3396-9221-2433-WNYC. So as a culinary historian, how can.

[D]

Food, in this case lunch, eat in the middle of the day?

[A]

How does it change your understanding of a place?

[C]

I think one of the ways that you know, you're not in Paris when you're in New York is at lunch because everybody is just gobbling something fast. Lunch is the high speed meal. Americans have always been famous for eating fast and eating on the run. European visitors would come here in the 19th century, they would be amazed. First of all, people are just gobbling these meals and then the slop that was on the nobody could Even believe that, but it was the speed that. That Americans, and especially New Yorkers ate. So I think what we see about lunch especially is speed. And in fact, the really popular early lunch places were called New York Quick Lunch, A place where you just ran in, got a bite, ran out, or you sat at the bar and. And some child came in. And we saw pictures of this. We had them in the exhibition. A kid came in, rounded up a plate of something and rushed back to somebody's office with it.

[D]

So what did lunch look like in the 19th century?

[B]

Well, it depends on what you were doing. And so we have these images of these early downtown lunchrooms, and it's largely men who are eating at these bars. And they would be sitting at a bar, they'd see the people make their food, food. And I think also not having table service, you got much quicker service. So you got in and out very quickly. There would be notices on the menus, even when there were menus, saying things like, remember to take your personal belongings. Because people were in and out so quickly.

[D]

Wow.

[B]

That they didn't want people to forget their hats or their umbrellas. And that speed and efficiency is still very much a component of lunch today. We, you know, Laura mentioned slop on a plate. There are obviously slop bowls that are thought of today at, you know, Chipotle or SC Green. So I think this idea of speed and efficiency hasn't left our lunch culture in New York.

[D]

We're getting some great calls. Let's talk to Rachel in Nyack. Hi, Rachel. Thanks for making the time to call, all of it.

[E]

Hi, thank you for taking my call. So my New York City lunch fondest memory is of my childhood. I'm the youngest of five, and my family moved from the Bronx after they had me to the suburbs in Bergen County, New Jersey. And when we turned 12, except for my older siblings already knew how to do this, we were given the day off and we took the bus and subway to meet our dad. He worked at ABC across the street from Lincoln center. And we would go to the Ginger man for the businessman lunch. Now, at the Ginger man, that meant the businessmen had, you know, cocktails with their lunch. And we got to sit down and it was such a special treat to go out with these guys from ABC and have these lunches. And the greatest part was that then one of my two very best friends ended up being the bartender. One of the bartenders of Ginger man, and she ended up serving these guys. When we got older, he served the lunch to these ABC businessmen Every. Every Day that would come into the Ginger man and it was just such a special treat.

[D]

First of all, did you have a Shirley Temple when you went?

[E]

Well, yeah, I had a Shirley Temple. I was only 12.

[D]

Thank you so much for calling in. We might as well get into the, the businessman lunch. When did the idea of, you know.

[A]

You could have a martini or four at lunch start?

[C]

They were probably doing it for quite a while. But during the 30s, 40s and 50s, you started seeing something in New York that was power lunch. And that's when the guys and they were guys gathered and took what, two hours, starting with drinking and then some vast meal and then continuing drinking and it was all expensed. So they had the time of their lives. And you know, food is power in a lot of ways. And this was mail and it was money, which means it was really about power. A lot of the restaurants became famous for food, but they wouldn't have if it weren't for that kind of power money clientele pouring in the door every day in the middle of the day.

[A]

Rebecca, how did this timing between 12 and 2 become the time for lunch?

[B]

Well, how did the. So 12 and 2, you know, those were the hours of lunch that was, you know, you took, yeah, you took your midday meal, then you started the day. You couldn't necessarily get home if you were working far from home. You couldn't necessarily travel back and forth in time to make it back to the office. And lunch is interesting because it's the first meal that you eat outside of the home as a child. And so lunch is really a reflection on how people live and work, which makes it such an interesting topic for research. So you've got children eating lunch outside of the home. You've got businessmen going out to work and emptying onto the streets between 12 and 2. And you also have women, this is in, you know, the 19th century, early part of the 20th century, who are going shopping during this time. And so they're going to department stores, they're shopping, they're stopping for ice cream or tea. And so oftentimes you have these crowded streets between 12 and 2 and there are photos of it, of people teeming everywhere trying to get food. And then you see office buildings being erected in the 1960s and they're incorporating their own lunchrooms so that people don't have to go outside and, you know, get back in time.

[D]

We've gotten two different texts about companies. This one says, I worked at MetLife Insurance Company in the early 90s. They still had an in house cafeteria.

[A]

Which where lunch was free to all workers. In the old days, they used to.

[D]

Ring bells because lunch was 18 minutes long for workers. Another one said, I loved eating in the Conde Nast cafeteria when it was still at Four Times Square. Never knew who you would see. Any other thoughts about the, The. The. The corporatization of lunch? This idea that companies come and give you lunch? I've heard, I've been to Twitter. It's amazing, the kind of lunch. Well, when it was Twitter, the kind of. They had, you know, chefs on staff.

[C]

The MetLife lunch cafeteria was a huge thing at the time. When that building opened, people poured in to see what was going on, and they made it. It was the first kind of office building where you went in at the morning and you were expected to never leave. And they had everything there. They had a dentist, they had a shoeshine, they had barbershop, and they had these cafeterias. And when you started working at MetLife, you told them if you had religious objections to any particular thing or dietary objections, and they knew who you were, they had your name and your dietary thing, and you had a place to sit in the cafeteria. So you went to that seat at the start of your 18 minutes, and they brought you the meal that you could eat, and you ate it and you left. And if you were. And it was free, but if you were like five minutes late, your pay was docked. So once they got you in that door, they owned you. And this is something that the tech companies obviously, in Silicon Valley adopted that system.

[A]

We're discussing the history and culture of lunch in New York. My guests are Rebecca Fetterman at the New York Public Library and cultural historian Laura Shapiro. They curated an exhibition at the NYPL called Lunch Hour in New York City. We also want to hear from you. What's your favorite lunch spot in New York? It could be a place near your office, a place to go for a power lunch, a spot where, you know, you could eat fast on the go. Our number is 212-433-WNYC 212-433-9692. Let's talk to Lori in Connecticut. Hey, Lori, thanks for calling in.

[E]

Hello. I just want to say that when I moved to Connecticut From California in 1963, we went to the Automat. I was 12 years old and I had never seen such a thing. Never been in a big city anyway. But to be in New York City and going to lunch at the Automat was just the berries.

[A]

Oh, Rebecca, do you want to share what the Automat was?

[B]

Yes. So the Automat started in the Horn and Hardart Company was the. The company that there were automatic automatic restaurants that started in Germany, but then Horn and Hard Art Company brought them to the United States, and they started in Philadelphia in the turn of the 20th century. And then they opened their first automat in New York in 1912, and it was a huge hit. It was on Broadway and 47th street in times Square. And basically, it was an automatic restaurant. You. You. There were glass containers filled with. There would be pie or baked beans or creamed spinach, and you would take your nickel, and there were nickel throwers who were women who gave you nickels, and you would put in your nickel, you'd turn the dial, and out would come your piece of pie or your baked beans or your creamed spinach. And everybody who went to the automat says it was the most incredible thing. It was like they'd never seen anything like it because you saw your food and you could pick whatever you wanted. And also you have these wonderful stories of people who were putting together a concoction of, like, hot water and ketchup to make tomato soup. It was open to everybody, and all different kinds of people went to the automat and they branched out. They were all over New York City for quite some time. The last automat actually closed in 1991. So it had a very long history in New York City. And when we had. In our exhibition in 2012, we had a refurbished automat wall. And you could see the wave of nostalgia just come over every visitor who came in and had experience with an automat.

[D]

Did you want to add anything to the Automat story?

[C]

Yeah. The funny thing about Automat memories is that they are all about you put in the nickel and you open the little door. And that magical moment stays in the mind of everybody who ever did it. The automat itself was actually more than that. The reason it stayed alive over all those decades was not the little cabinets and the doors. It's that every automat also had a cafeteria where you could line up, the ladies would dish out the actually wonderful food that they were making in those days, and you paid for it. And that is what people who went to the Automat day after day, all the working people, people who came in the morning, came in the evening. That's what kept the automat alive. But the memory of the Automat, the power of the image of the automat, is what made history.

[D]

I tell an automat story. My friend Marcie Hardart, oh, when she got married, her husband found an old piece of the horn and Hardart, one of the canisters. One of the. What do you call it?

[B]

The drums.

[D]

The drums. He gave it to her for their wedding anniversary and they had it put in her house, in their house in Santa Monica. It is the most gorgeous thing you have ever seen. And that guy's in love, clearly. Yes, we are talking about lunch culture.

[A]

In New York City.

[D]

We see the phone lines, we see that you're holding. We're gonna get some more calls after a quick break. This is all of It.

[A]

You're listening to all of it on wnyc. I'm Alison Stewart. My guests in studio are Rebecca Fetterman and Laura Shapiro. They curate an exhibition at the NYPL called Lunch Hour New York City. We want to hear from you. Let's get to a couple of calls from. Robert is calling from Hamilton Square. Hi, Robert, thanks for holding. You're on the air.

[F]

Hi, thanks for taking my call. Excuse me. I wanted to shout out briefly the old 1271 club at the old Time Life building, which was at 1271 Avenue of the Americas, right across from Radio City. It was the headquarters of Time, Inc. The publishers of Time, Money, Sports Illustrated, Fortune and other large magazines. And although the building had a great employee cafeteria for US average worker bees, the 1271 Club was sort of an elevated experience for the top editors, publishers and managers. And if you were lucky, as I was once in a while, maybe once a year, once every few years, a vice president or a publisher would invite you to sit at his or her table. And it was a great way as a young person to sort of be seen, you know, among the top level people. And it was a great honor. I don't really remember the food being that terrific or wonderful, but the experience was just a little bit different and elevated. So I appreciate being able to look back at that no longer with us, as are a lot of things.

[A]

Did you want to respond to that, Laura?

[C]

Just I think that the kind of graduated scale of office dining that he's talking about is really interesting. Doesn't happen in an office culture that's conducted by Zoom anymore. You have to be there. It gives you a different sense of yourself. You get to see what's up ahead of you. And I'm sorry he doesn't remember the food because that would have finished telling the story. But it's a great example of food class and office work all working together.

[A]

Yeah. This text speaks to your point. When I started working in 1982, all my friends were in commercial bank training programs and they all had subsidized lunches. Best was Bankers Trust. I was in Advertising making $11,000 a year. So every day I would eat with the bankers, plus occasionally I'd get in taking out by some media rep. And yep, they still were doing the three martini lunches. Let's talk to Melissa, who is calling us from Mercer County, New Jersey. Hi, Melissa, thanks for taking the time to call all of it.

[E]

Hey, really pleased to be on and share my experience.

[D]

Yeah.

[A]

Oh, oh, we lost you. Oh, you know what? Let's see if we can flex Melissa's phone. And we will go to Trudy, who is calling from Princeton. Hi, Trudy, can you hear me?

[C]

Hello?

[A]

Hello?

[E]

One of them. I grew up in Princeton, so used to take the bus into Port Authority. And we always went to Lord and Taylor's to shop. And of course we went to the Birdcage for lunch. And it was just. I think the reason that we went was because it was mostly women and we felt very comfortable there. And I think it was probably a great way for Lord and Taylor to attract shoppers to come in too. But I just have very fond memories of going there with my sisters and friends.

[A]

Oh, do you remember the train blew at Bloomingdale's?

[B]

Bloomingdale's are 40 carats. Or the B. Altman restaurant? I feel like I've been to almost all of the department store restaurants. They're great.

[A]

Let's talk to Jesse from Spring Lake. Hi, Jesse, thanks for calling, all of it. Is Jesse there?

[G]

Talk to you.

[E]

Yep.

[G]

Watching the ocean as usual and listening to you. You're the best. This is the best. I tell all my friends it's the best two hours of radio.

[A]

Aw, thanks so much. Tell us about your lunch story.

[G]

Well, when I was a kid, I used to go up to New York quite often and we went to Lindy's, and that's where I experienced the first club sandwich. And, you know, just trying to get your lips around that, but, you know, the. The crust would be cut off and it'd be in the squares. And then also Schraps was amazing place for lunch. And then if we were really living high on the hog and going to a matinee, we'd go to Sardi's before going to the show. And that was really exciting.

[A]

That was exciting. And you know what? Sardis still has a good club sandwich, by the way, in case you were wondering. Laura, let's talk about delis. Delis is a classic New York institution. When did the delicatessen pop up in.

[C]

The lunch Sphere would have been. Rebecca, do you remember this sort of like, mid 19th century, mid 19th century, where, you know, delicatessen. The word has food in. Started in the Jewish immigrant community. Some of them were. Some of them were kosher. Some of them had meat. If they were kosher, they did not have meat. But the idea was food in quantity. And this story about the club sandwich that you could barely fit into your mouth, that became a kind of deli staple. And Katz's, of course, was famous for it, the mountainous sandwich, which is also. It's a deli staple, but it's also an American staple. Americans are famous for having gigantic food portions much bigger than you'll get anywhere else in the world. This was certainly true in New York. And good or bad about the food, there was always a mountain of it. And the other thing about delis was that it had one of those identities. It was like the ottomat. Once you met the identity, it was part of your identity. And that's what kept the lunch culture alive, I think, as much as the food, it was the feeling that these were your places.

[D]

Rebecca, let's talk about street vendors. What role have street vendors played in New York City lunches over the years?

[B]

I mean, they've been around since New York City began.

[D]

Yeah, immigrants.

[B]

Yes, yes, exactly. And obviously they're still with us and providing lots of lunch to everyone, whether it's a pretzel vendor or halal meat. And so we had, when we opened the show, thinking about as much food as one's hand can hold, that original definition of lunch. We wanted to highlight some of these vendors, like pretzel vendors, where, you know, pretzel vendors have been in New York for quite some time now. You can get a hot pretzel. They used to be sold on sticks. They'd have a pretzel woman, usually with a basket, and you could pile the pile. The sticks are piled up. The pretzels are piled up on a stick. And unfortunately, they were considered sort of the. The least desirable vendors. Pretzels were associated with a lot of. With beer drinking, largely.

[A]

I see.

[B]

And so it wasn't. It wasn't good to be necessarily seen having a pretzel for lunch if you were a reputable person. But then with prohibition, that went away, and now they're considered, obviously, still a tasty treat that everyone enjoys to this day.

[D]

This text says, my first job in the city was at the Met Museum. We had an hour lunch break, and the Met is a city in itself. You could eat in the Met restaurant, then see Exhibits or catch their lunchtime documentary films. Great entree to New York. When you think about lunch places in New York that people should have in their memory or they should think about. We've talked about the horn and hard art. What are some other places that people should think about?

[C]

The caller who mentioned Shrafts really put her finger on a classic office and especially a women's office lunch. Schraffs was a welcoming place for women to eat alone or with each other. They finally, sort of towards the 50s and 60s, when they were losing customers, they decided to add alcohol and they put in a bar in the upstairs. It never worked. It was the wrong identity. People went to shrafts for tuna fish sandwiches on cheese toast, certainly for ice cream, for all kinds of salads, for ladies lunch. And it was something that I kind of miss it to this day. Like the birdcage at Lord and Taylor. Absolutely comfortable. They treat you like a lady. It's not bad to be treated like a lady if it's not done with condescension and a cut in pay. So I think those are important places.

[D]

Yeah. To bring gender into it. This is interesting text. It says, when I was first practicing law in the late 80s, I noticed it was mostly men lawyers in the office who took a full lunch at a restaurant. The women lawyers very often ate at their desks and ran errands. What do you think about that?

[B]

They were experiencing early sad lunch meme. Sad desk lunch meme. Yeah. I think there weren't necessarily places where you felt comfortable eating. And so if you had errands to do, you were doing your job. And often you were also doing a second job, which was taking care of errands. You didn't necessarily have that time and luxury to go out for lunch and spend your full hour just eating with your colleagues. So that makes a lot of sense.

[D]

Let's talk to Leslie from the Bronx. Hi, Leslie, thanks for joining our Lunch Hour.

[E]

Hi. The term lunch break has become sort of ubiquitous, even for people who are working on shift work. For example, when I was working as an RN in the local hospital and working a night shift, I would say to one of my co workers, I'm going on my lunch break, even though it would be 3:00 clock in the morning.

[D]

Oh, so you had lunch at 3:00am yeah.

[B]

And that's very much in keeping with the original definition. You sort of fit it in wherever you could.

[D]

Gotcha. Let's talk to Judy, who's calling in. Hi, Judy, thanks for calling all of it. What's your Lunch Story.

[E]

Hi. First of all, that exhibit at the library was wonderful, especially that wall from Horn and Horta. But in the 60s, we went shopping, my sister and I and my mother in downtown Brooklyn, either to Maize, A and S Corvettes. And we always ate at Chock Full of Nuts. It was a counter service and they were all over the city. And the thing we ordered was cream cheese on a date, nut loaf bread.

[A]

Thanks so much for calling in. That's making me so hungry. We're discussing history and the culture of lunch in New York. My guests are Rebecca Fetterman of the New York Public Library and culinary historian Laura Shapiro. They curated an exhibition exhibition at the NYPL that was called Lunch Hour New York City. We're going to come back about lunch. We are going to talk about lunch in schools in just a few minutes. What was the role of lunch in schools?

[C]

This started early on that certainly in New York and schools elsewhere in public education, they began to see that kids were spending the day in school hungry. No surprise. And if they had a few pennies, they might run out and buy some cheap candy or pickles. Yes. Or worse yet, a hot dog. This was considered the lowest thing you could do. They got the idea of feeding kids something in the middle of the day and school lunch came up from that. And it was always necessary. It was never without controversy. It always cost something. But the repayment in kids lives was enormous. For many kids, it was always more or less the best meal or the best balanced meal that they got during the day. So it's been with us almost as long as the public schools in New York.

[B]

Yeah, it started around 1908 or 1909 with the school Lunch Committee, which was a charitable network of reformers. And then it became part of the Board of education around 1919, 1920. And they targeted a few schools in the beginning. In Hell's Kitchen was one, in Little Italy was another. And they really attempted to provide children with food that they would recognize from home. So if they were Irish immigrants, they would provide like clam chowder or soup. If they were Italian immigrant kids, they would serve macaroni and minestrone. They really wanted the students to eat. And it was really successful.

[A]

What was your favorite part of the exhibit, Laura?

[C]

The automat was hard to resist. Yeah, that is for sure. But I had a special fondness for our. In the section of the exhibit called Power Lunch where we talked about these men's power lunches, we also had women's power lunches. We had women from some of the early Women's clubs, getting together, taking a stand by going out to lunch together at Delmonico's, where women were not allowed to come in in the middle of the day without a male escort. Well, they went in, they broke in, they broke through that barrier, they took a table and they had lunch. So lunch was their key to pushing forward and breaking down some of those barriers. Years later, Betty Friedan did much the same thing, breaking into the bar at the Plaza with a group of women and insisting they be served, which they weren't. In some ways it was a failure, but it got a lot of publicity.

[D]

Let's talk to Grace in Keyport, New Jersey.

[A]

Hi, Grace, thanks for calling, all of it.

[E]

Hi, I just want to say that I loved going to Woolworth, which had a counter and I would get a triple decker sub, or it wasn't called a sub yet, and a sandwich and also Niedx, which was a hot dog place, special hot dogs. My father said they were so good because they were kind of dirty. And also I remember, really remember what I used to eat at the Automat. Baked beans, creamed spinach, spaghetti and a banana cream pie, all carbs.

[D]

Thanks for calling in. Before we let you go, Rebecca, this was a beautiful exhibit that was at the library, but we wanted to give you time to tell us a little bit more about other exhibits that are coming up.

[B]

Yes, thank you. So, yes, this exhibition closed back in 2013, so it's been a little bit. But we have some incredible exhibitions still on display right now at the 42nd Street Library. We have four exhibitions. We have our Polanski Treasures show, which is an ongoing show of some of the most extraordinary items from the library's collections, including the Gutenberg Bible, the original Winnie the Pooh. And then we have some other shows, the A Century of the New Yorker, which is the commemorate the 100th anniversary of the New Yorker magazine. We have a Puerto Rican comic book collection exhibition going on right now and also an exhibition called New York Middle Eastern and North African Lives in the City. So these are all free and we are open, obviously we're open tomorrow until 1 o'. Clock. And hopefully people who are visiting New York can come to the library to take advantage of these free, wonderful exhibitions.

[D]

And I think we've had three out of four of them on the show.

[H]

Oh, great.

[D]

So you can go back and you can listen, listen to them and then go see them at the nypl. Our partners, my guests have been Rebecca Federman from the NYPL and culinary historian Laura Shapiro. We've been talking about lunch in New York City. Thanks for joining us.

[B]

Thanks for having us.

[C]

Thank you.

[H]

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