Jin Japanese Restaurant 252 Brome Street Visit their website	You know how in Japanese restaurants in America you can find "California Rolls", or "Boston Rolls" or even "Philadelphia Rolls" . . . At Jin on --guess where-- the lower east side of New York, you can find a "Lower East Side Roll!" It is created from: spicy salmon, tuna, avocado, eel, tobiko. Not your typical lower east side food fare from the past two centuries for sure, but a good sign nonetheless. It celebrates the ever changing immigrant flow that continues to find its way to the boroughs of the city of New York.

There are some vestiges of the Jewish lower east side of the past, but they are fading fast. At this time you can still visit the remaining business that serve food items better known by past generations: they are Katz' Deli, Yonah Shimmel, Gus' Pickles and Kossar's Bialies. Jin Japanese Restaurant itself took over the space formerly taken by a hosiery store, an wholesale and retail industry that once dominated this section of the Jewish lower east side.

August 2008 - Did you know that the Broadway musical, "West Side Story" was originally set on the Lower East Side. Yes, it's true. The composers intended to write a musical based on the themes of Romeo and Juliet but featuring tensions in this New York City neighborhood between Catholics and Jews. It was to take place between Passover and Easter. The composers felt no inspiration from this setting and the project went nowhere. Arthur Laurents stepped in and suggested the setting change from religious to racial tension and a move to the upper west side and 'West Side Story' took shape.

August 2008 - The hotelier who is going to open the new Thompson LES Hotel, Jason Pomeranc was quoted this week as saying this of the day his hotel opens: "going to be a moment in time that will be remembered as kind of when the Lower East Side came of age." Tell that to the folks at the Mercury Lounge, Katz' Deli and WD50, all of whom might beg to differ!

July 2008 - The new Thompson LES Hotel missed its July 15 deadline to open on Allen Street on the Lower East Side. Around the corner from Stanton Street, the hotel promises a rooftop pool with an Andy Warhol mural in mosaic on the pool floor. Andy would have been so proud. Will we finally get to see Moby in swim trunks hanging out here on the roof?