Bucher

Moe Albanese is the last butcher standing in New York’s Little Italy. His father, Vincenzo, was a butcher from Polizzi Generosa, in Sicily. Moe’s mother, Mary, also of Sicilian descent, could speak some English.

Moe Albanese and his store. Pic: Paul Toohey (digitally altered)

“My father said to her, ‘You ask the customers what they want and I’ll cut the meat’,” says Moe, who was delivered by midwives at a home birth on this same block in 1925 and has never left the area.

Albanese Meats & Poultry on Elizabeth St is a relic of New York. It is now being crowded out by snappy boutiques and, just to the south, by Chinatown.

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  • pj says:

    07:34pm | 13/02/12

    At first I thought it read Genovese! :( scary… Read more »

  • Zopo says:

    11:27am | 13/02/12

    We the customers are also killing off these businesses. I always live by “You get what you pay for”. The only problem is when I leave work to buy meat or veges butchers are always closed at 5pm same with the fruit shop, if they want to compete maybe they… Read more »

 

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