New York City’s Iconic Carnegie Deli Closes at Midnight

The Carnegie Deli is closing on Friday after 79 years of dishing out slabs of cured meat on rye and knishes for tourists and pleasure-seeking New Yorkers.

The Midtown Manhattan deli, which featured photos of the celebrities who had eaten there and earned its time on the silver screen in Woody Allen’s 1984 Broadway Danny Rose, was a pitstop for tourists looking for knishes, cheesecake, chopped liver, or a $20 pastrami sandwich.

Owner Marian Harper said she was closing Carnegie Deli in order to take personal time. The restaurant also was forced to pay $2.6 million in backpay to employees in a labor dispute and was closed for nearly a year after an investigation into a possible illegal gas hookup.

The New York institution will serve its last sandwich and shutter its doors at midnight on Friday.