I like to preface things with the phrase, “Can you imagine?” probably because i take pictures of reality as a starting point, and, in reality, things aren’t imagined, and can be captured, but, nevertheless, it produces the same questiom.
As far as what’s already known and published about Glaser’s, why rehash? There is plenty of information about Glaser’s around. My contribution is capturing the last hour of a generational baking history in the same spot for 116 years.
Normally these sorts of disappearances are more tragic than bittersweet because they have historically occurred as the result of economics – either decline from a bad economy or from redevelopment in a booming economy taking advantage of low prices and changing times, and flipping it, in other words, gentrification. The key to surviving gentrification s owning your building.
In the case of Glasers the closing is tempered by the fact that it was done as a family decision and by their economic free will – they own the building.
It’s rare, but when you see a dive bar selling cheap drinks in a decent neighborhood, you can bet its owner owns the building and is from there, possibly for generations. Pretty grim considering unaffordable rents and the fading individual family shops go hand-in-hand and is an insurmountable problem.
But the Glasers who arrived on the upper east side when it was the domain of German immigrants, by keeping the bakery and and their homes as one, and owning everything, provided the stability to grow organically, the family business.
Still, a person’s last day at work where he spent his life is emotional and bittersweet, and, in the case of Glasers it was the end of 116 years in the same place doing business every day until 2015. But when you shut down according your your own free will, and, after spending your life to that point as a baker, makes all the difference in the world, compared to the displaced shop owners in a quickly changing city, or even cabbies whose livliehood was taken out by Uber and Lyft, long-time generational folks wo lost their homes through gentrification and displacement.
Money, a person’s free will and black and white cookies, there’s a strong connection.
