A look inside some of NYC's oldest institutions

This month, Katz’s Deli celebrated 125 years of piling pastrami high on the Lower East Side. The deli is New York City’s oldest in operation and part of a group of institutions that still do what they do best since the days when horse-drawn carriages shuttled people through unpaved streets.

These are businesses, venues and community mainstays that have survived, if with few interruptions, new competition and the tumult of change in the country’s largest city for more than a century.

“We got them beat by a lot,” Bridge Café owner Adam Weprin said of McSorley’s.

In response, Bill Wander, who researched McSorley’s history for the bar, maintained that McSorley’s is oldest, saying the space at 279 Water St. was dry for five years during Prohibition. Wander disputed that a trucking company that occupied the space during that time was a front for a speakeasy. McSorley’s is said to have served alcohol through Prohibition. “McSorley’s was declared the oldest the day after Prohibition [ended],” Wander said.

Still, Weprin contends that alcohol was always flowing at 279 Water St., whether operating as a bordello or the trucking company, ostensibly. “Under my reign, we’ve never had better alcohol served,” said Weprin, whose family started the Bridge Café in the historic space in 1979.

The location’s history put pressure on Weprin to repair and reopen Bridge Café, which was damaged by Superstorm Sandy. He hopes to be open in the fall.

“It started as a home for art with a capital ‘A,’ with opera, classical music, and then theater and dance,” said Louie Fleck, who works with the BAM Hamm Archives.

BAM has delivered performances of all stripes over the past 151 years in part due to its “ability to adapt to needs of the community in the broad sense of the word,” Fleck said.

“You know those ever-present halal carts? A lot of those are ours,” said Wayne Sosin, president of the company since 2007.

Originally situated in lower Manhattan, the company moved to Greenpoint in the 1960s, and then to its home in Ozone Park in 1979.

Today, the Religious Society of Friends, better known as Quakers, continue to hold an hour of silent worship at the Meeting House, which has a sign out front noting all are welcome to come in and pray.

“It’s been in continuous use, except for the time it was occupied by the British during the Revolutionary War,” said Wendy Burns, a clerk with the Religious Society of Friends, which maintains the Meeting House.

The Meeting House remains as modest as it was during the 17th century when it served as a refuge for persecuted Quakers.

“It is very plain and very simple. That was the Quaker way — and still is,” Burns said.

“Steakhouses come and go in New York City, but Old Homestead Steakhouse has become an icon because of its longevity,” said Steve Mangione, a spokesman for the steakhouse.

“The styles haven’t changed,” said owner Adrian Wood, who has been with Paul Molé for 40 years. “A good haircut is a good haircut.”
The barber shop was established in 1913 under Joseph Molé, who opened for business down the block from where it stands today on Lexington Avenue and East 74th Street.

“They would take the pizza back to the factories and heat them up in the ovens used to keep them warm ... and that was lunch,” said John Brescio, the owner of Lombardi’s.

Located at 32 Spring St. in NoLita, Lombardi’s is the oldest operating pizzeria in America. New York licensed Lombardi’s in 1905, officially making it America’s first pizzeria.

For the NYPD, the headquarters of the officers patrolling Central Park are located in the oldest precinct in the city. The Central Park Precinct was established in 1936 out of a redesigned High Victorian Gothic horse stable built in 1870. The latest renovation on the historic site was completed in March.