vip in the city

Brooklyn Flea

At Brooklyn Flea — one of the city’s newest weekly markets, held Sundays at Bishop Loughlin Memorial High School in Fort Greene:

The wares seem not much different from what one would find at the markets in Hell’s Kitchen or on Columbus Avenue) — though with greater emphasis on hipster-friendly crafts — but the food offerings are much improved over what one would come across on my side of the river: Salvatore Bklyn ricotta and cannoli; Blue Marble Ice Cream; Wafels & Dinges; pies from LaCrosta Pie Co.; Kumquat Cupcakery (distributing free miniature cupcakes this afternoon)…

Expected later this month: Brooklyn-made products like Brownstone Beans and Wheelhouse Pickles and CSA-favorite and immigrant-supporting breads from Hot Bread Kitchen. 

Check out The New York Times feature on the eats at Brooklyn Flea, which also notes the highly anticipated arrival of the food vendors from the Red Hook ball fields.

Tags: antiques, Brooklyn, flea market

Reduce, reuse, recycle

I think that my parents have become those people for whom “antique” is a verb. Neighboring New Jersey is dotted with antique coops — sort of like antique “malls,” where individual dealers set up stands under one roof to showcase their wares. But instead of The Gap and Starbucks, there are stacks of old books and displays of furniture and assorted knick knacks. Today we visited shops in the sleepy towns of Mount Holly and Somerville.

Is the impulse to go searching for treasures hard-wired in us from our hunter-gatherer days? People spend entire weekends tooling around and shopping for antiques; it’s probably a more pleasant experience when one is not operating on a couple hours’ sleep.

And though I’m forced to self-edit my possessions due to Manhattan apartment space constraints — and therefore I tend to finish these forays empty-handed — I do appreciate the idea of these old things, which in other contexts might be considered trash, being re-purposed and re-loved.

Tags: antiques, New Jersey

One man’s trash

Also at the Columbus Avenue flea market, I came across these “historical diggers,” who scavenge painstakingly through construction sites to unearth detritus of a forgotten New York. On display today, their collection of glass bottles, several of which date to the early 19th century:

Tags: antiques, flea market