By: Chanelle Perrin and Laura Rossi
Car horns blare as Citi bikes whiz down Ninth Avenue’s busy bike lane, a jarring contrast to the homey and family oriented atmosphere inside the Poseidon Bakery. Located on 44th Street along Ninth Avenue, the building stands out in the neighborhood being the only light-blue storefront, paying homage to the bakery’s Greek heritage, among an assortment of red-brick buildings.
Located in Hell’s Kitchen, Poseidon Bakery is no longer surrounded by the prostitution, Irish mob and criminal activity that plagued the neighborhood in the ’60s and ’70s. “The neighborhood is so different now, it has changed dramatically,” said Lili Fable, the co-owner of the family-operated business.
Poseidon Bakery, known for its hand-made authentic Greek baked goods, from kourambiedes, an almond cookie, to their signature Spanakopitas, spinach and ricotta pie, the bakery has become a staple in Hell’s Kitchen. The business started in 1923 by Lili’s grandfather-in-law, whom she refers to as ‘Papu’, the Greek word for grandfather.
Ninety years later, the bakery is still successful under the management of Lili and her son, Paul Fable, the fourth generation of the family. Poseidon is one of the few original businesses that remain on Ninth Avenue after the wave of Irish, Greek and Italian immigrants came and left.
Before coming to New York, Papu had owned a small pastry shop in Greece, near the end of a boat dock; he named the bakery Poseidon after the Greek god of the sea. Papu decided to leave Greece in the early 1920s and join the new wave of immigration by coming to New York City.
“He walked into the neighborhood, saw this little shop and decided he was going to do in America what he had done in Greece and open his own business… he still kept the name Poseidon because the closest body of water was the Hudson River,” Fable said. Papu was living the American Dream, but was cut short, however, after 30 years of business.
Posiedon Bakery’s original location was on 41st and 8th. In 1951, the Port Authority wanted to build a passageway connecting New York City and New Jersey, and that plan came at the expense of small business owners. “They placed official-looking documents on the countertops of the small businesses that basically told them they had six months to pack up and move out,” Fable said. Many of the owners were new to America and lacked the knowledge and resources to fight the eviction.
“That’s how cold they were… Most of the shops were owned or run by immigrants who did not know how to fight City Hall, they had no idea what to do, so they just packed up and left”, said Fable. The injustice infuriated Papu, who felt that those things shouldn’t happen in America. He decided that he would not let the Port Authority quell his dreams of being a business owner, so with his wife, Yaya, they found a new location in 1952.
Yaya feared that they could not afford to buy the building, however, Papu reassured her that they were “going to earn it.” After years of hard work and a patient realtor, the Fables were able to pay off their debts and own the building in its entirety.
After being pushed out of their first location on 41st Street, Papu understood the significance of owning his own property and the building is still paying off for the fourth generation of Fables. Poseidon is on the first, Lili lives on the second and Paul and his family live on the third.“We are the quintessential shopkeepers who live over the business”, Fable said, eyes beaming with pride.
Each family member plays an essential role for the bakery. The children have after-school jobs cleaning up and making deliveries, “Their holidays were spent in the store helping Papu, Yaya, Uncle John, helping Dad, helping Mom and they knew that was a part of their lives” Fable said.
Paul is responsible for making the pastries, which is a time consuming process for many of the Greek treats, one pastry in particular that he favors to make is the intricate yet delicate Kataif. The pastries are always fresh and made by hand, and Paul, who has been co-owner for the past 20 years, credits their longevity to their authenticity. “They might not mind for something like a Baklava or a cookie, but people can tell the difference… we don’t make our goods using big machines, and it comes out better” he said.
The family has deep roots within a community and has always strived to make it better. “In the 80’s—The streets were being encroached by prostitution. When they made their way to 9th Avenue and were hanging out in front of the stores, the shopkeepers in the neighborhood got very involved with the police.” Fable and several shop owners from 9th Avenue attended council meetings and began making complaints about the activity in their neighborhood, things Fable labeled as “doing her part.”
Little by little Lili began to see the transformation and the clean-up of her community, which later incentivized developers to want to transform the area; however, Lili said, “This is a preserved district therefore they can’t just tear down and build up skyscrapers all willy-nilly. I don’t think there are any buildings taller than five stories in this district and we don’t want there to be”.
Since the neighborhood has gotten a significant facelift, a new crowd has arriving, with new businesses and younger people have been moving in. “It’s not because they have to be here, but they want to come here…in the past, these tenements were filled with poor Irish and Italian families then the Hispanic families moved in…We were always a neighborhood that was ethnically mixed,” Fable said.
The Poseidon Greek Bakery has made its mark indefinitely on Ninth Avenue; Lili Fable and several shop owners from the neighborhood decided to start the Ninth Avenue International Food Festival. It is an annual celebration held in the spring that showcases all of the different cuisines Ninth Avenue has to offer. The celebration is currently in its 40th year and is a testament to how much the immigrant population has affected this neighborhood.
A customer who is family friends of the Fables said, “My Dad had to move the business out of the neighborhood, but I still try to visit the festival. Lili is a sweetheart and it feels good to come back and know that some things haven’t changed.” Furthermore, this fourth generation family-owned business shows the perseverance of immigrants. Even through hardships, Papu found a way to plant his feet in a foreign land and influence a neighborhood to bond together like his business, like family.