Exhibit 5.1

August 6, 2013

Cedar Realty Trust, Inc.

44 South Bayles Avenue

Port Washington, NY 11050

Ladies and Gentlemen:

You (the “Company”) have requested our opinion in connection with your filing of a prospectus supplement to the shelf registration statement on Form S-3, File No. 333-179956 (the “Registration Statement”), relating to the offering of shares of the Company’s Common Stock, $.06 par value per share (the “Common Stock”) to be sold from time to time through an “at the market” equity offering program.

In furnishing this opinion, we have examined copies of the Registration Statement, your Articles of Incorporation and By Laws, as amended to date, and the resolutions of the Board of Directors authorizing the issuance of the Common Stock. We have also examined such other documents, papers, statutes and authorities as we deemed necessary to form a basis for the opinion hereinafter expressed. In our examinations of such material, we have assumed the genuineness of all signatures, the authenticity of all documents submitted to us as original documents and the conformity to original documents of all documents supplied to us as copies. As to various questions of fact material to such opinion, we have relied upon statements of your officers and representatives and others.

Based upon and subject to the foregoing, it is our opinion that the Common Stock has been duly authorized by all necessary corporate action of the Company and when the shares of Common Stock have been issued, delivered and paid for, such shares of Common Stock will be validly issued, fully paid and nonassessable.

We hereby consent to the filing of this opinion as Exhibit 5.1 to a Current Report on Form 8-K and to the use of our name under the caption “Legal Matters” in the prospectus supplement to the Registration Statement.

Attorneys involved in the preparation of this opinion are admitted to practice law in the State of New York and we do not purport to be experts on, or to express any opinion herein concerning, any law other than the laws of the State of New York, the Maryland General Corporation Law and the federal laws of the United States of America.

Very truly yours,

/s/ Stroock & Stroock & Lavan LLP

STROOCK & STROOCK & LAVAN LLP