by Yori Yanover

In 1973 photographer Bruce Davidson captured this woman in front of the Garden Cafeteria. The image below shows the sign which briefly reappeared last month

ast month, as workmen were gutting the Chinese restaurant on East Broadway and Rutgers, a small miracle occurred: The sign reading “Wing Shoon” came down to reveal the large op-art sign it had been riding since the 1980’s: “Garden Cafeteria.”

It wasn’t really the sign, but the electric board which gave it life all those many years ago, but to neighborhood old-timers it was tantamount to those relics you hear about, which bulldozers are known to excavate while digging up earth.

The Garden Cafeteria was to the Lower East Side’s Yiddish writers what Viennese coffeehouses were to Vittgenstein: a place of inspiration, cantankerous infighting, fresh gossip and heavenly nourishment. The Forward building nextdoor was the reason they all hung out there, waiting to read and be read.

As news of the chance excavation spread, Laurie Tobias Cohen, Executive Director of the Lower East Side Conservancy, rushed over to the construction site and had a word with the foreman, who demanded $500 to take down the sign. Laurie didn’t have that kind of money, nor the space for the huge boards, so she alerted Amy E. Waterman, Director of the Eldridge Street Project, and Amy Stein-Millford, Director of Public and Community Relations for Eldridge. They contacted all the preservation organizations they could think of, but in the end it was up to them, and they opted to retrieve the vertical part of the sign, with the word “Garden,” which separated the two “Cafeteria” signs stretching one into Rutgers, the other into E’Bway.

As of mid-April, the two large boards are gone for good, but the vertical sign will be on display at the Eldridge some time this season. Call them for information, at 212.219.0888.