Kibbitz & Nosh: Photographs

“Kibbitz & Nosh: When We All Met at Dubrow’s Cafeteria” unfolds in the mid 1970s as a photographic essay about a unique dining establishment that was more than just a place to eat for a generation of Jewish New Yorkers.

There, between the magical mirrored walls and steaming coffee urns, I found myself as if on a theater set, looking out at a tableau of memorable Brooklyn faces. Enchanted by the space and its denizens I returned again and again.

Gossip, lipstick, powder puffs, cigars, kerchiefs, fedoras, and leopard pattern coats—all the cafeteria denizens’ accoutrements for dining on gefilte fish, kasha varnishkes, rice pudding, or blintzes are here. I would chat with people I ordinarily wouldn’t socialize with — ex-vaudeville performers, taxi drivers, Holocaust survivors, ex-prize fighters, bookies, and women with sad love stories and big hearts. My photographs are personal, open-ended and narrative. These are the private moments of and between the people where elements of their enduring spirit are exposed.