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Russ & Daughters — the iconic Lower East Side Jewish deli — might get a television treatment.
Time Studios has signed a deal with Niki Russ Federman and Josh Russ Tupper, the family business’ fourth-generation and first-cousin owners, to shop around a scripted drama about the deli’s history.
Joel Russ immigrated from Poland in 1907, and after first selling herring out of a barrel, opened shop in 1914.
The deli moved in 1920 to its current East Houston location, where it’s known for its bagels and lox — as well as its long weekend lines.
“I think that the show is…really going to resonate because we’re coming out of a moment where people have been feeling very disconnected and living through screens,” Federman told The Post. “And I think the story of Russ & Daughters and our world is really about family and connection — and something very much in the real world. We’re all starving for that right now.”
Joel Russ didn’t have any sons, and so brought his three daughters — Hattie, Ida and Anne — on as partners, adding them to the store’s name. Their husbands later joined the venture as well.
Federman and Tupper’s grandmother, Ann, “was the youngest of the three ‘Russ daughters,’” Federman said.
The pair was approached by a producer friend, Kim Rozenfeld, formerly head of nonfiction programming at Apple and now on his own.
“I was always really intrigued by them and their business,” he told The Post. “And I approached them with the idea to develop the show as a drama, as a series.”
The next step, Rozenfeld said, is finding a writer, followed by a few months of development. Viewers could see the show on-screen in “about a year.”
The deal was first reported by Deadline.
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