Albanese Meats & Poultry, Nolita, New York

Albanese Meats & Poultry has been in Nolita since it was called the Lower East Side. The butcher in the photo grew up in the neighborhood and his mom ran Albanese until she was 97. This is the real old-school neighborhood butcher not like todays gleaming white medical meat morgues of huge supermarkets. He was telling me how the whole street on Elizabeth use to be little food shops. Across the street was a Greek food shop that customers brought their own jugs to get filled up with olive oil and the same for milk. These leftovers from another era are hard to still find in Manhattan but they are so rewarding when I do.