In 1999, if you walked east from Union Square down E. 14th Street you would first hit Manila Garden, a restaurant and piano bar. Right before 1st Avenue to your left was Manila Food Mart, a spot to pick up Filipino staples and perhaps a snack of ensymada. There was the Super Palengke towards E. 13th Street and further down was the Mandarin Grill on the west side of East 12th.
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This small radius of Little Manila burgeoned from the Filipino immigrants who were recruited to work as doctors and nurses at Beth Israel, NY Eye and Ear Infirmary, and St. Vincents. Some lived in nearby Stuyvesant Town/Peter Cooper Village. In 1990 there were 758 Filipino-identified residents living in the East Village/Stuyvesant Town and by 2010 the population of Filipino-identified residents dropped by 24% to 598.
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But older than all of them was Elvie's Turo-Turo near the southeast corner of 1st and 13th, a maroon awning emboldened with a sans-serif and lower case "turo-turo." You could walk in, and if it was lunchtime, there would be a line of women and men, but mostly women in scrubs grabbing lunch combos. There were daily specials—Paksiw Lechon on Monday, Bistek Pilipino on Tuesday, Pusit on Wednesday, Binagoong Baboy on Thursday and Kare Kare on Friday.
For almost 20 years, the expats and first generations of Filipinos found their way to Elvie's Turo Turo pointing to the various dishes that were both good and bad for the heart. Elvie's was reliable, and cheap, a go-to even for The New York Times where the restaurant was listed in themed guides in 1993, 1998 (twice), 2000, 2001 and 2005. The short reviews were, like the storefront, wispy, short bursts rendered inconspicuous at the wrong moment of a blink. The Filipino restaurants that established the East Village as a Little Manila on and near 1st Avenue were, like many Filipinos, public and invisible.
For almost 20 years, the expats and first generations of Filipinos found their way to Elvie's Turo Turo pointing to the various dishes that were both good and bad for the heart. Elvie's was reliable, and cheap, a go-to even for The New York Times where the restaurant was listed in themed guides in 1993, 1998 (twice), 2000, 2001 and 2005. The short reviews were, like the storefront, wispy, short bursts rendered inconspicuous at the wrong moment of a blink. The Filipino restaurants that established the East Village as a Little Manila on and near 1st Avenue were, like many Filipinos, public and invisible.