Two Upper East Side Fixtures Faced Months Behind Closed Doors. One Reopened on Fifth Avenue.

On Sunday, November 1, at 8 p.m., Mezzaluna served its last plate at 1295 Third Avenue, between 74th and 75th Streets, after 42 years. Eleven days later and twelve blocks north and three avenues west, Neue Galerie New York reopened all of its galleries at 1048 Fifth Avenue for the first time since closing for building work on May 27.

Both had been looking at the same kind of decision. An old building needed work, and the work meant months with the doors shut. The museum treated that closure as one phase of a longer plan. For the restaurant, the same months were the cost that led to its closing.

What staying on Third Avenue would have cost

Mezzaluna could have stayed. As the New York Post reported, staying would have meant signing another 10-year lease and taking on extensive, expensive renovations, including an overhaul of the restaurant's tiny kitchen. Founder Aldo Bozzi told the Post that the project could have closed the restaurant for months, with renovation costs piling up while no revenue came in.

New York Eats Here put numbers on that space. The kitchen measured about 150 square feet. The storefront Bozzi first leased in June 1984 was about 1,100 square feet. The opening menu had no main courses, and it served 17 pizzas from a beehive-shaped wood oven. A room that small does not have a back section that can stay open while the front is rebuilt. Rebuilding the kitchen meant closing the whole restaurant.

Mezzaluna had nearly closed once already this year. As New York Eats Here recounted, in March a TikTok claimed the end had come. More than 2,100 people signed a petition, and the restaurant got a reprieve. In its final weeks, the line wrapped around 75th Street, and some people waited three hours for a table, according to the same account of the Post's reporting. Jennifer Miller Jewelry, a few blocks away on Lexington Avenue near 71st Street, started a fundraiser for the restaurant's longtime staff, Patch reported.

Bozzi did not describe it as a final ending. He and his daughter have talked about finding another space, ideally a corner with outdoor seating, though no plans are imminent.

"Let's not say goodbye. Let's say arrivederci. That's a big difference."

He said that to the New York Post.

How the museum closed in stages

Neue Galerie's building is older than Mezzaluna's lease by seven decades. Carrère & Hastings, also the architects of the New York Public Library, completed 1048 Fifth Avenue in 1914 for the industrialist William Starr Miller. Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt III later lived there, and the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research occupied it after her. Ronald S. Lauder and Serge Sabarsky bought it in 1994, and the museum opened in 2001.

The museum describes this year's project as a multi-phased construction effort to enhance the building and fortify it for the future. It closed for the summer starting May 27, so the Museum Mile Festival came and went with only a pop-up table outside the front door.

The return also came in stages. Café Sabarsky, the Book Store and the Design Shop resumed regular hours on October 1, about six weeks before the galleries reopened. The café now runs Monday from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Wednesday through Sunday from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. It is closed Tuesdays. So the café was serving again weeks before the galleries opened. Mezzaluna's single 1,100-square-foot room had no part that could reopen first.

What is on the walls now, and how the building runs

The reopening show is the "25th Anniversary Exhibition: Masterworks from the Neue Galerie," on view through January 11, 2027. It fills the entire building with Austrian and German fine and decorative arts, drawn primarily from the permanent collection, along with selected recent acquisitions. Gustav Klimt's Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I from 1907 is on view. For anyone who has walked past the building since late May, this is the first chance to see the galleries since the restoration.

The practical details:

• Hours: Monday and Wednesday through Sunday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., with final gallery entry at 5:30 p.m. The museum is closed Tuesdays.
• Admission: $28 general, $18 for visitors 65 and older, and $15 for students, educators and visitors with disabilities. Members get in free and skip the line.
• Tickets: Same-day tickets are always sold at the museum. Advance tickets are optional.
• Children: Children under 12 are not admitted during regular hours, and visitors ages 12 to 16 must come with an adult.
• First Fridays: The museum stays open late with free admission from 5 to 8 p.m. on select Fridays, first come, first served.

The museum, shops and café close for Thanksgiving on November 26 and for Christmas Day. On December 24 and December 31 they close at 3 p.m.

The Fifth Avenue calendar around it

Neue Galerie reopened on the same day several of its neighbors opened new shows. The Met opened "A Long Shadow: Postwar Japan Through the Lens" on November 12, and the Frick opened "Kent Monkman: Officer and Laughing Girl" that day too. The weeks after Thanksgiving are full on this stretch of Fifth Avenue, and most of these dates fall before the anniversary show closes.

Two notes on the table. The Met's twenty-foot blue spruce stands over an eighteenth-century Neapolitan Nativity scene in front of the Spanish choir screen from the Cathedral of Valladolid, and the museum has scheduled no tree-lighting ceremonies this year. At Miracle on Madison, the Madison Avenue Business Improvement District says 20 percent of the day's sales at participating stores, up to $15,000 per store, goes to MSK Kids.

Several longer shows run past the holidays. The Frick's "Siena: The Art of Bronze, 1450–1500" is on view through January 18. At the Guggenheim, Taryn Simon's "Father Country I Do Love You" fills the rotunda through March 14. At Cooper Hewitt, "Frederic Church in Jamaica" is on view through February 15.

East of Lexington, the fall's newcomers

The Fifth Avenue institutions can afford to close for months and come back. East of Lexington, the fall's changes came from new businesses opening in their own storefronts. In the weeks around Mezzaluna's last service, Eater NY, East Side Feed and Upper East Site reported these openings nearby:

• Kuriya, a soba noodle house at 219 East 85th Street, opened September 6.
• La Sardine, a seafood-focused wine bar at 1614 Third Avenue at 91st Street, opened September 9.
• Ob Uan, a Thai restaurant at 1479 First Avenue at 77th Street, was open by late September.
• Opening Move Café, a board game café at 208 East 87th Street between Second and Third Avenues, opened in October.
• MYKA, a Greek frozen yogurt shop at 1547 Second Avenue, opened in late October.

BloomBar Café et Fleurs, a café and flower shop that Patch covered, has its address at 1226 Third Avenue at 71st Street, three blocks south of Mezzaluna's old corner. According to East Side Feed, more restaurants are planned. Pepe & Vera at 1712 First Avenue, between 88th and 89th Streets, has been aiming for Thanksgiving week. Ship of Fools at 1152 First Avenue, between 63rd and 64th Streets, has a January 2027 target. The Yorkville Ledger tracker lists Bread Ahead as planned for 1571 Second Avenue at 82nd Street, and Bluestone Lane for the former Adria space at 1556 Second Avenue.

After 42 years, Mezzaluna was offered another ten-year lease on Third Avenue and decided not to sign. In late November, Café Sabarsky is serving until 9 p.m. five nights a week at 86th and Fifth, while Mezzaluna's corner at 74th and Third is closed.

At Charlar Acar, we follow the Upper East Side block by block, from the Museum Mile buildings on Fifth to the Third and First Avenue corridors where this fall's changes happened. If you want a quiet look at homes within walking distance of 1048 Fifth Avenue, or along the avenues east of Lexington, ask for access to our private listings.