We now bring you our last installment on how to be a luftmensh in the big city. If you’ve just joined us, a luftmensh is a yiddish word for someone who gets by without much money but with a lot of ingenuity. Marine Olivesi has the story.


NARR: We’re going back to John Steinmetz, the man who lingers around restaurants at closing times to get gourmet food at no cost. He shared another trick last night with the pack audience of the Lower East Side tenement museum who were there to hear stories about being "Down and Out” in New York.

STEINMETZ: Every drama student knows, you can see the best Broadway show... for nothing. You just dress moderately, not in tattered jeans (but today it is tattered jeans, isn’t it?) and you show up just after the second-half curtain. You just mingle with the guests and then when they go back in you pick up the best seats in the house.

NARR: Steinmetz went on to say that New York is a very curious city. Things are either really expensive, or they’re free, so why not go for the free?

Marine Olivesi, Columbia Radio News