We're going to start our story today in New York.

Maybe it was late 2015. I was running a blog about New York City, and it was about the locals of New York

and the regulars that visit coffee shops a lot. And so I was talking to random people. I was going a lot

to downtown Manhattan. And I came across this random people. I was going a lot to downtown Manhattan.

And I came across this poster and it was on a bus stop, but it was graffitied over.

So I wasn't really able to tell what it said.

But all I could make out of it was that it said Little Syria.

And that confused me.

This is reporter Hagrid Das telling the story of little Syria to producer Alex Hay Tak.

Hager is an Egyptian American, which was born in Cairo, raised in New York.

If you're Arab and you grow up in New York, you know all the Arab spots in the city.

So you know Astoria and you know New Jersey, Patterson, New Jersey, but this was something that I had never heard of before.

Oh, so this phrase, Little Syria, was something that was totally new to you?

I had never heard of it before. When I heard of it, I actually thought it still existed.

So, Hagur, who lives in New York City herself now, started to look into this supposed

place called Little Syria.

She googled it, and one of the first things that came up was this place called Sahadis,

which turned out to be a grocery store in Brooklyn.

It was about a 40-minute train ride away, so Hagridad hopped on the subway. Clear up the closing doors, please.

I'm about to go into Sahadis right now.

When you first walk in, the first thing I noticed was that there were these really large brass plates hung up by like the cash register.

And they have aisles upon aisles of like pickles and spices.

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