Crossing Delancey (1988) — Paris McGarry

Lower East Side, Manhattan & Upper West Side, Manhattan

Crossing Delancey is the ultimate 1980s New York film. Uptown girl meets Downtown boy (who happens to make pickles for a living). Isabelle Grossman, played by Amy Irving, works at a high-brow bookshop uptown organizing literary talks and readings. Her Bubbie wants her to meet a nice Jewish boy and asks the neighborhood matchmaker to set Isabelle up with someone. Enter Peter Riegert as Sam Posner. He plays handball at the Lower-East Side handball courts across the street from his father’s pickle shop that he now owns and operates. Crossing Delancey is full of classic New York moments, girlfriends venting while running on a balcony indoor running track, downtown vs. uptown life, highbrow meets working-class love story, Delancey Street in 1988, etc. Isabelle struggles throughout the film between what she thinks she wants and the perfectly sweet and available guy in front of her who represents a world she thinks she’d like to separate herself from.

Director Joan Micklin Silver’s first film Hester Street (1975) starring Carol Kane is another New York City romance but a period piece set in 1896. Next, she made Between the Lines (1977), with a young Jeff Goldblum, which tells the story of the staff at a Boston underground newspaper staff. Before making Crossing Delancey, she directed Chilly Scenes of Winter (1979) where she worked with Peter Riegert in a supporting role. In 1989 she directed Loverboy (1989) starring a young Patrick Dempsey.

Amy Irving’s notable film roles are Sue Snell in the 1976 Carrie and Hadass in Yentl (1983). Peter Riegert's notable film roles are Donald Schoenstein in National Lampoon’s Animal House (1978) and Mac in Local Hero (1983).

Isabelle Grossman (Amy Irving) and Sam Posner (Peter Riegert)

Bubbie Kantor (Reizl Bozyk) and Isabelle Grossman (Amy Irving)

Bubbie Kantor (Reizl Bozyk) and Sam Posner (Peter Riegert)

Isabelle Grossman (Amy Irving) and Bubbie Kantor (Reizl Bozyk)