Remembering Richard Ravitch & Going Ga-Ga for Groceries

Remembering Dick (Richard) Ravitch: A quintessential New Yorker, Ravitch was the go-to guy in New York to get things done. He passed in 2023 and was honored earlier this month with the co-naming of 23rd Street and the FDR Drive as Dick Ravitch Way. His online obituary said that he was “known to have tackled some of the most important urban challenges facing New York with creativity, boundless energy, and unmatched political savvy.”

In New York, his crowning achievement was the Waterside Plaza housing community. The co-naming ceremony turnout included newly electeds Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal and Keith Powers, nearing the end of his term-limited run in the City Council but recently tapped as the Democratic candidate in a special election for a vacant NYS Assembly seat for the East Side. Speaking at the event, former Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney remembered Ravitch as follows: “If you loved democracy, then you’ve got to love Dick Ravitch, who embodied the values of public service. He was a powerful force behind public policy that will benefit the lives of New Yorkers for generations to come.”

I heard whisperings by politico higher-ups, but couldn’t confirm, that Nancy Pelosi was there. After I shared it with someone who wouldn’t reciprocate with insider info, I presumed that maybe she was there to lend support to fellow Congressman Dan Goldman in his congressional race. Still haven’t gotten a yea or nay, but when I hear, I’ll give it to you, dear readers, hush-hush, confidential and on the q.t.

Back to Ravitch. Not sure, but I think he lived on the Upper East Side. I’d see him occasionally having dinner at the beloved Demarchelier French bistro on 86th Street off Madison Avenue, once with Paul Volcker, a former chair of the Federal Reserve. Their le coq au vin, mon dieu!

But that too came to an end. “It is unfortunate that it had to end this way,” namesake co-owner Emily Demarchelier told Eater in 2019. “But we’re not the only restaurant having to deal with something like this on the Upper East Side. Entire blocks are being torn down in this neighborhood, and only big restaurant groups can afford to survive in this city.” Indeed, though Demarchelier lives, it does so in Greenport, LI, now.

DUMBO does Manhattan: This DUMBO’s an acronym (Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass) and refers to that borough called Brooklyn, which is a pathway from Brooklyn to Manhattan and has nothing to do with the Disney Dumbo elephant with jumbo ears. The DUMBO of which we speak is Dumbo Market, a newly opened supermarket on Second Avenue at 64th Street. It’s 12,000 square feet. By comparison, a regulation-size NBA basketball court, such as the New York Knicks and Brooklyn Nets play upon, is 4,700 square feet. How many olives it would take to fill Madison Square Garden from courtside to rafter, however, I have no idea.

Dumbo Market opened mid-December and seems off to a powerful start. A coffee take-out counter is up front as you enter. No seating. But there’s still some construction going on on the street alongside the entrance. Might be for seating, might not. Is this one of William Empson’s “Seven Types of Ambiguity”? Time will tell.

The shelves, meanwhile, are well stocked, and the pricing is generally competitive, which means if you’re looking for bargains, you’re likely headed to some ethnic market in Washington Heights or Queens, or driving to ShopRite in Paramus, NJ, because that’s not happening here.

Oooh! Oooh! Ouri’s! There are more than a few other new-ish supermarkets in the area, including a Whole Foods on Third Avenue and, more surprisingly, Ouri’s, pronounced Oo-ri, an upscale kosher market whose mothership is on Avenue U in Gravesend, Brooklyn. Not to kvetch, but some people have called Ouri’s a “grocery” store. By definition, a grocery may be a supermarket, but a grocery store, in my world—call it Arleneia or Kayattistan, just don’t call me late for dinner—is more akin to a bodega, or the mom-and-pop grocery of earlier generations.

Ouri’s ginormous space at 1160 Third Avenue, between 67th and 68th streets, is definitely a supermarket! Opened in September 2024, it’s become a go-to destination for kosher and other local gastrophiles. Bonus: You can shop at Ouri’s, do a grab-and-go with coffee and sit down at a streetside table and people-watch: dee-lish!