Book Launch and Author Talk: Marcia Bricker Halperin | “Kibbitz & Nosh, WHen We All Met at Dubrow’s Cafe”

Book Launch and AUTHOR TALK: Marcia Bricker Halperin on Kibbitz & Nosh, When We All Met at Dubrow’s Cafeteria

(Cornell University Press, 2023)

Registration recommended.
Registered attendees may tour the exhibition afterwards, 3:30-5:00pm, Edward Hopper House Museum & Study Center.

On a winter’s day in the mid-1970s the photographer Marcia Bricker Halperin sought warm refuge and, camera in hand, passed through the revolving doors of Dubrow’s Cafeteria on Kings Highway. There, between the magical mirrored walls and steaming coffee urns, she found herself as if on a theater set, looking out at a tableau of memorable Brooklyn faces. Enchanted, Halperin returned to Dubrow’s again and again. In Kibbitz & Nosh, Halperin reminds us of the days when she would order a coffee, converse with the denizens of Dubrow’s on Kings Highway and at its Manhattan location in the Garment District, and in that relaxed atmosphere execute candid photographs. In keeping with the work of Vivian Maier and Robert Frank, these black-and-white images taken during the waning days of New York City’s legendary cafeteria culture are revealing and empathetic.

In writing the book, Halperin worked with the Pulitzer Prize–winning playwright Donald Margulies and the lauded historian of the Jewish-American experience Deborah Dash Moore to provide essays that illuminate and contextualize Halperin’s poignant photographs.

This exhibition and programs are made possible, in part, by funds provided by the New York Council on the Arts Support for Organizations grant and Humanities New York with support from the National Endowment for the Humanities, and Rockland County Tourism.