In 1977 the Forward turned 80 years young and threw itself a lovely shindig at the New York Hilton, as seen in the image above. Mazl Tov! The celebrators reneged on the Hilton's linen table service, settling for paper table settings, as the linens provider was the current subject of a boycott.

With an aging Yiddish readership, and a shifting demographic, the paper's leadership decided to sell it's historic building on East Broadway and moved to midtown, settling in at 45 east 33rd Street. Here we see the last grouping of Yiddish typesetters who made the move over to midtown.

So mazldike was this celebration, even Mayor Abe Beame, whose fortunate as the city's 104th mayor were waning, proclaimed the upcoming Sunday April 24, 1977 as Forward day. Beame, a product of the Lower East Side, was educated in his youth at PS 160 on Suffolk, seen in the image above.

And so, with the official recognition flowing out of City Hall, the Forward set forth to celebrate in the style it had never truly become accustomed to and yet, there they were, near one thousand in attendance, at New York's Hilton Hotel, in grand style. The Forward's front page that day said it all: It's Foward day in New York, Mayor Beame has proclaimed it. And so we'll be celebrating our big birthday of 80 years, the mighty age , gvure in Yiddish, that finds us, since first publishing in 1897, as the largest and best Jewish paper the world over.

Firmly planted in midtown at that point, nearby the famed garment center where so many of its readers worked and whose unions the Forward helped launch, and literally down the blockfrom the epic symbol of American industriousness, resilience and imagination, the Empire State Building seen in the image above, the newspaper was ready to party. In its front page coverage of the celebration they spoke of this gala being for the readers. News vendors awaited a special multi section 80th anniversary issue as did readers, who were also asked not to purchase more than one per person. And a line of readers waited outside the NY Hilton to attend their gala.

Tables at the banquet were decked with artfully printed copies of the Forward's first edition, printed in April 1897 near their first editorial offices on Duane Street, nearby this image of the newsboys lodging home and the city's first newspaper row surrounding City Hall.

Joining the festivities were Yiddish writers including some of the more famous ones whose works are considered part of the canon of Yiddish literature, frequently serialized in the Forward. Writers such as Chaim Grade who resided in the Amalgamated Houses in the Bronx, seen above. Nobel Prize winning Yiddish Forward writer I.B. Singer was also in attendance.

The festivities included greetings from diplomats and dignitaries world wide as well as from American then President Carter, Vice President Mondale and NY State Governor Carey, among others. Former Israeli Minister Golda Meir and then Premier Yitzhak Rabin sent telegrams of congratulations. Recently arrived Soviet Jewish musicians performed and a holiday meal was served. At the end, then editor in chief Simon Weber declared the paper "a national treasure that also serves to preserve Jewish culture." And finally, then president of the Forward's administrative and governing body, the Forward Association, Israel Breslow declared the Jewish people deserved to celebrate. "Let there be joy and exaltation."