Wednesday, August 16, 2006

1902 Inman Square

No landsmen of Ma Edelstein (the original owner of S And S) in 1902 Inman Square, except maybe Louis Rubin at 24 Oak Street (click to enlarge photo). It's pretty much Irish with Peter Foley owning the current site of the historic delicatessen on Cambridge Street. More on S and S history: The trolley from North Station to Harvard rumbles through Inman Square, in Cambridge, in the 1890's. Behind it another car heads for Union Square, in Somerville. This is a classic American neighborhood commercial center, formed, like so many others, at an X-shaped intersection - in this case, that of Cambridge and Hampshire streets. The tower at right belongs to a fire station built in 1875; firefighters used it to hang their hoses out to dry. Things don't change very fast in Inman Square. The fire station is gone, but there's another one on the same site. The same family has operated the same Inman Square business for three-quarters of a century. Rebecca (Ma) Edelstein opened a small deli here in 1919, urging her customers to "es and es," Yiddish for "eat and eat." Today's S&S Delicatessen cooks up an average of 1,800 meals a day. It claims to have served 19 million bagels over the years (but who was counting?). The "S," as neighbors call it, is mostly hidden behind the prow-shaped building at center, a 19th-century hotel now used for stores and offices and owned, like much of Inman Square, by the restaurant.

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