(Photo: Angelica Frey)
On Monday, Bowery Boogie, citing anonymous “sources,” claimed that “word on the street is that the landlord is trying to force ‘em out with an all-too-familiar rent hike.”
But we’re hearing something different. “This place is not going out of business,” said Ellen Anistratov at the Lower East Side knishery today. “We’ve been here for 100 years and we’re going to be here for another hundred years. This is the root of the tree of Yonah Schimmel, the heart of Yonah Schimmel.”
Anistratov, who identified herself as the manager, is also said to co-own the knishery along with her father. When asked about the bakery and building’s ownership, she told us, “It’s irrelevant, we’re not going anywhere. We’re here to stay.”
Anistratov said she first heard the rumor yesterday, through a friend. “Do you know what I think? I think it’s a slow month for reporters and they have nothing better to do,” she said. She doesn’t know who started that rumor and why. On that matter, she simply commented, “I wish people were happier in life.”
Efforts to reach the building’s landlord have been unsuccessful.
Yonah Schimmel was a Romanian immigrant who operated his business on a simple pushcart in Coney Island. The current location, at 137 East Houston Street, has been open since 1910. It’s where Larry David’s character in Woody Allen’s Whatever Works went to introduce his girlfriend to New York’s culinary staples. Not even a car crashing into the next-door storefront in 1970 could knock it off its feet.
Whatever’s going on at Yonah Schimmel, we knish them all the best.