Lifestyle

The Restaurants That Defined New York

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The first issue of New York Magazine was dated April 8, 1968, exactly 56 years ago today. To celebrate, we present our tenth annual “Yesteryear” issue, in which we do a close examination of a highly specific aspect of city life over the decades. A few months ago, we were in the early stages of planning the package and wondering what it would be; we’d decided to cover the history of New York restaurants, but we still needed an exact way in. I didn’t think that a 118-year-old photo of Mark Twain — stiff as a board, having to sit still for who knows how long to get the shot back then, but nevertheless intriguing — would be the discovery that made the idea click. When our photo director, Jody Quon, showed it to us, we all realized this wasn’t going to be an issue about chefs or food. It needed to be about the parties, the nights, the mornings, and the meetings that happened inside these restaurants and the characters who populated them. With Twain locked in, we set about finding the dozens upon dozens of other stories (the filmmakers and artists in Chinatown, the Manhattan teens in McDonald’s, the models at Indochine, and the cab drivers at Punjabi Deli) that would round out the issue.

—Alan Sytsma, food editor, New York

Who Ate Where A social history of the city, told entirely through its restaurants.

Photo: Hugo Yu
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