MURRAY’S STURGEON SHOP, Upper West Side

by Kevin Walsh

Undoubtedly well-known to Upper West Side residents, Murray’s Sturgeon Shop, on the west side of Broadway between West 89th and 90th Streets, is here on FNY because of its original neon sign, which has shown brightly since the shop’s founding in 1955. According to Zagat’s Marketplace Survey, Murray’s offers “the best smoked fish in the best city in the world.”

Murray’s Sturgeon Shop on the Upper West Side is the kind of city treasure that just bides its time quietly year after year, not garnering excess publicity, just standing firm, doing what it does. Murray Bernstein, the owner of the shop, and a man renowned for his standards and skill with a knife, sold the store in 1974 to restaurateur Artie Culter, who sold it to Ira Goller in 1990. Murray retired to Florida and died in 2000. Cutler, the guy who would go on to create the dining monsters Carmine’s and Ollie’s, died in 1997.  Lost City

7/3/14

3 comments

Porgie Lowenfish July 7, 2014 - 9:42 pm

Indeed, he was the Sturgeon General…

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Old Skool July 8, 2014 - 7:15 pm

Clevah!!

Reply
Gabriella November 10, 2015 - 2:52 pm

Shop was founded in 1946, not 1955, and sign (according to Ira, the current proprietor) was not part of the original store. He guesses the sign was installed in the early 1960s, Tom Rinaldi (Neon New York) dates it c. 1950-55.

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