[Photo yesterday by Derek Berg]
There are new reward posters up on all four corners of Second Avenue and Fourth Street... the NYPD is seeking information about the murder of Abe Lebewohl on March 4, 1996.
On that morning, Lebewohl, owner of the Second Avenue Deli, was making a $10,000 bank drop — NatWest Bank at the time — on the northeast corner of Second Avenue and Fourth Street.
Here's more via a March 2013 ABC 7 story:
"That morning he never had time to get out of his van. They got him right before he got out of his van," said retired NYPD homicide detective Jimmy Piccione.
Piccione responded to the crime scene, just a few blocks south of the eatery whose owner had become almost as famous as his steady stream of celebrity visitors.
"It was 8:30 in the morning, I remember thinking there is going to be a witness and it's going to be solved quickly, and 17 years later, here we are," said Piccione. "That morning Abe pulls up to that parking spot right there but before he gets out, he's accosted by one or more persons. He's taken to the back of the van and he's shot. Someone drives the van to First Avenue."
Abe, dying, manages to crawl out of the van onto the sidewalk.
"A passerby says, are you okay, and he says, "They got me."
The gun was found 2 days later in Central Park. It was later linked to 3 different shootings, but never to Abe Lebewohl's murder.
"We've been to Las Vegas, New Orleans, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina. We went wherever a lead would take us," said Piccione.
Piccione retired from the NYPD in 2011. In 2015, he joined his ex-NYPD partner, Jeff Salta, who had just retired and joined the Manhattan DA's office as an investigator.
As the Daily News reported this past March 4, the two remain determined to make an arrest in this case.
The Second Avenue Deli (Second Avenue at 10th Street) closed in 2006 thanks to a rent hike. There are two other locations now in the city, run by Abe's brother Jack Lebewohl with his sons.
Anyone with information that could help in the investigation is asked to call Crime Stoppers at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477). You may also submit tips online.
