A Lower East Side corner store: neon over the awning, a tin ceiling, glass cases lit from inside, the census in every case and up on the photo wall.
This room stands for the appetizing store, a New York trade in smoked fish, cured salmon, herring, and cream cheese, the foods eaten with bagels. Kosher law kept fish and dairy apart from the meat of the delicatessen, so the two became separate shops. Joel Russ opened his store on the Lower East Side in 1914 and renamed it Russ and Daughters in 1933, the first business in the country with 'and Daughters' in its name. Barney Greengrass has sold sturgeon on the Upper West Side since 1908.
Source · Russ and Daughters ↗
The long glass and marble counter, hanging salamis on a rail, a pressed tin ceiling, the numbered ticket dispenser, the corner neon and awning, the photo wall. Mood: sunday morning. Everything is procedural geometry with painted surfaces; nothing is a scan or a photograph. The room is an interpretation, and it hangs the New Yorkers the census recorded at this place first.