Hugged by Greens: Sandwich Time on the Upper West Side

By Yvonne Vávra

New York is always a little dazed the weekend after Thanksgiving. It’s the city’s version of clearing empty glasses, scraping candle wax off the table, and slumping into the sofa.

But the party isn’t over, it’s just moved to the fridge. Open it to a glowing trophy case of mismatched containers holding the remains of the celebration. This is the delicious aftermath, when leftovers get their second act between two slices of bread and you can let loose layering, reinventing, and honoring the bits and pieces of the great feast. And the best part? You get to enjoy it alone, quietly, and in slippers.

It’s Sandwich Time.

As I chewed on a cold slice of turkey, a thought began to chew at me: we live in a sandwich! The Upper West Side is held snug between Central Park and Riverside Park, a perfect filling between two slices of green. That must be why the neighborhood feels so cozy. New York has given us a special slice of its island, clearly wrapped in beautiful green arms.

A hug is one of those rare moments when your body gets to stop holding itself together. You can exhale fully, without fear of falling apart. The world is huge, unwieldy, and we often lose our boundaries amid all the noise and rush. But between two arms, we immediately know where we begin and end, and the world shrinks to a size we can manage. There it is: a shape, a steady moment, a place for us. Come home to the Upper West Side, and let go.

Many would argue that it’s the stuff between the bread that makes the sandwich. And ours is one of those giant ones stacked so high it unhinges your jaw and leaves you with mustard all over your face. If you were to bite into the Upper West Side, you’d taste tree-lined calm and Broadway bustle, slow walkers and fast talkers, shawarma and pho, rugelach and mille-feuille. The elders and the eager bros, cardigans and power vests, routines that never change and nonstop openings and closings. Terraces in the sky and studios below street level, La Bohème at the Met and hippos on the playground, Lycra and silk, strollers and canes … I’m only stopping here to take another bite.

Everything is pressed together, mingling and melting. It’s soft and crunchy, a little messy in the middle and a little lopsided as well, but always holding. Always delicious. You’ll want to use both hands for this sandwich, and yes, there will be mustard on your forehead.

Of course, the Upper West Side isn’t just metaphorically delicious but literally sandwich-famous. That pastrami on 72nd Street, the one that just landed on a list of the seven best pastrami spots in New York City, indeed looks like it understands everything I’ve been saying about the pleasures of a good hug. It lives in Pastrami Queen’s signature sandwich, between two slices of fresh rye, right next to pickles from the garlicky heavens.

This is far from the only sandwich that makes the city drool—New Yorkers come from all directions to this slice of Manhattan to get their teeth on our creations. I appreciate them all the more as someone who comes from a land where the Mettbrötchen is considered a classic. That’s German for raw minced pork topped with raw onions and a bit of salt and pepper on a roll. It’s raw on raw on dry, A+ for minimal effort. The Upper West Side would never.

Case in point: Moshe’s Falafel’s sabich. Our very own Abigael T. Sidi recently wrote about it in her “Here’s the Dish” column. She raved about silky eggplant, crispy potato latke, and creamy tahini—but, “really, the sabich was about gluttony and gluttony only. Mushy, messy, tasty, filling and delicious—the kind of sandwich that leaves you satiated for a week!” If I didn’t still have at least three days’ worth of leftover sandwich creations in my fridge, I’d be on my way.

Moshe’s is beloved by the city’s foodie scene, and so are the sandwiches Mama’s Too! drops by announcement only. Twice a week, the pizza shop on Broadway between 105th and 106th Streets stuffs the day’s special between crusty bread, and New Yorkers come flocking, buzzing, waiting. Having watched more reviews of Mama’s sandwiches on social media than I could stomach, it’s clear: these sandwiches give people feelings.

As for me, I’ll finish my leftover creation, then go take a bite of Broadway, with a schmear of Westsider Books and a dash of tourist-watching by the Natural History Museum. Maybe I’ll head over to Moshe’s after all. Yes, yes, you’re right, that would be sheer madness. I’ve officially gone mad for bread. I’d better just walk from one green arm to the other, through the full hug, and let go of this constant craving for more. No rush, there’ll always be another bite in the UWSandwich. Here, it’s never a wrap.

Yvonne Vávra is a magazine writer and author of the German book 111 Gründe New York zu lieben (111 Reasons to Love New York). Born a Berliner but an aspiring Upper West Sider since the 1990s (thanks, Nora Ephron), she came to New York in 2010 and seven years later made her Upper West Side dreams come true. She’s been obsessively walking the neighborhood ever since.

Subscribe to West Side Rag’s FREE email newsletter here. And you can Support the Rag here.