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Nicole Akers
New York's Pizza Principle Still Holds True
2021-04-17
New York, NY--Are you hungry? If you aren't yet, you're about to be. You like to eat, at least on occasion. Hopefully, at some point, you've had one of the biggest, bad for you, greasiest slices of pizza you'll ever encounter. It's a New York-style piece of pizza.
The New York style of pizza is traditionally a large, thin, hand-tossed crust and cut into large wide slices so big that they can be folded in half and eaten on the go. It is the dominant style eaten all over New York as fast-food pizza.
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Its origin is of slight dispute. Lombardi's in New York, claims its established date to be 1905. If that's true, it would possibly be the first pizzeria in America. Lombardi's website has this message:
"Lombardi's was established as America's First Pizzeria in the early 1900s. We have survived through depressions, wars, and even the Spanish Flu, but the effects of COVID 19 will likely go down in history as our biggest challenge.
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It would be a shame to see COVID take out what is possibly America's first introduction to pizza.
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What made it special? The coal oven that cooked the pizza. The oven Lombardi's used was run off of coal because it heated more efficiently and took up less space, thereby making it a cheaper energy resource than wood-burning ovens. All of the pizzas at that time were sold as whole pizzas.
That changed when an Italian immigrant, By 1934, Frank Mastro had invented the earliest form of the gas-fired pizza oven many pizzerias are fond of today and changed the pizza pie forever to a by the slice commodity New Yorkers love:
"Suddenly the max oven temperature drops by 400°F. So now that you're in the 500-to-550°F range, the pizzas take longer to bake and are baking up drier. But they also have a longer shelf life because more of the water is cooked out. So they're reheatable. Pizza by the slice is—has to be—reheated most of the time. So that oven is a big deal."
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Enter the Pizza Principle
The NY Times refers to one New Yorker as accurately predicting what has come to be known as the Pizza Principle:
"Since the early '60s," he pronounces, "the price of a slice of pizza has matched, with uncanny precision, the cost of a New York subway ride. Right now, it is impossible for any discerning New Yorker to find a decent slice of pizza for less than 60 cents. The 50-cent fare was doomed."
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The Myth Holds
Since then, largely, the myth has held true.
George Fasel was a Vice President of the Bankers Trust company when he wrote about the Pizza Principle throughout the 70's and 80's and that it still holds true:
''Yes, the token is subtly but inextricably linked to the price of a slice of pizza. Don't ask why. It just is. Where, today, in 1984, can you get a decent slice of pizza in New York for 75 cents? It's tough to swallow'' - I think he meant the truth, not the pizza - ''but that's how this town works.''
Jared Lander studied 1800 pizza joints around New York by the prices published on their online menus in 2014 to see if the Pizza Principle still holds true. He also took into account the discount given when he used his Metro card to get a discount on his fare when he rode the subway. His findings are summarized here:
"The mean price was $2.33 with a standard deviation of $0.52 and a median price of $2.45," he writes. "The base subway fare is $2.50 but is actually $2.38 after the 5% bonus for putting at least $5 on a MetroCard."
Additionally:
"Since March of this year, a single subway ride has cost $2.75. With an 11% discount if you buy a $5.50 MetroCard, or the cost of two rides, the adjusted fare is $2.45"
Lander's research shows the trend still holds true.
Undoubtedly, New Yorkers will revisit the Pizza Principle to see if it holds true after COVID, but if pizza economics hold true, the price of a New York piece of pizza and the fare to ride the subway will continue to trend together.
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