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Zabar's

specialty food store in New York City

Architectural plans, a scale model, maps and brass measuring instruments
Places and architectureInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJun 21, 2026
Entity authorityQ14707831
Source-derived summary

Zabar's ( ZAY-barz) is an appetizing store at 2245 Broadway and 80th Street, on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City, founded by Louis and Lillian Zabar. It is known for its selection of bagels, smoked fish, olives, and cheeses. While considered a Jewish delicatessen, Zabar's is not kosher-certified but carries a number of kosher-certified products.

History

Louis Zabar, born Mordko Leib Zabarka, (1901–1950) came to the United States through Canada from Ukraine, Soviet Union, in the early 1920s. His father, also a merchant, had earlier been murdered in a pogrom in Ukraine. Louis first lived in Brooklyn, where he rented a stall in a farmer's market. He married Lillian Teitlebaum (1905–1995) on May 2, 1927, and they had three children: Saul Zabar (1928–2025), Stanley Zabar, and Eli Zabar. Lillian had come to America by herself and settled with relatives in Philadelphia. She moved to New York City and met Louis Zabar, whom she knew from their village in Ukraine. Louis Zabar died in 1950; by that time he owned 10 markets.

Editorial summary

“Zabar's” enters the record as specialty food store in New York City. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Zabar's, specialty and food can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewMost useful as a place-based finding aid connecting the present description to earlier jurisdictions, maps and built evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1901, 1950, 1905, 1995—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1934-01-01. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Zabar's, specialty and food.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Zabar's” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Zabar's, specialty and food provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Maps, plans, fabric surveys and administrative records can establish how the site’s name, extent and function changed over time. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q14707831. Authority coordinates are 40.785, -73.980. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1901, 1950, 1905 and 1995.

Critical limits

Architectural summaries often privilege surviving fabric and can understate demolished phases, contested use or displaced communities. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.

Best used for
  • Historic place names
  • Jurisdictional context
  • Routes into maps and plans
Verify next

Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Zabar's”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Zabar's primary sources, Zabar's archive and Zabar's research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Zabar's”?
  2. What physical evidence or contemporary plan supports the description?
  3. Which earlier names or jurisdictions may reveal additional records?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Zabar's” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.