New Amsterdam Market

Reviving the Fulton Market District in Lower Manhattan #savefultonfishmkt #fultonmarketdistrictnyc Website Twitter Instagram

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Fresh Produce:

We've been posting a lot about fish, but there is so much more than that available at New Amsterdam Market.  We are also proud to feature some of the freshest, tastiest, and brightest colored produce around.  

At  our June 21st market, items from Myers Produce and the Lancaster Farm Fresh Cooperative were on hand.  You could find red dandelion, French breakfast radishes, sorrel, strawberries, kale, kohlrabi, zucchini blossoms, carrots, beets, a wide range of fresh herbs, a variety of lettuces, and much more, all sourced from organic farms in Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Vermont, and Massachusetts.

Our next market is Saturday, July 26th.  View the entire calendar here.

Also, check out our Instagram for some close-up shots like this one:

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The Mercados Project:

The Street Plans Collaborative released a study this past Spring called The Mercados Project, which investigates markets throughout South American cities and provides insights for market development in North America.

From the report’s introduction:

A city’s dynamism is created by the unplanned collision of people and the resulting exchange of goods, skills, and ideas…

In our opinion there are few venues better suited for serendipitous collisions than markets, an age-old urban archetype where culture and commerce invariably intersect. 

We couldn’t agree more!

Check out the entire report here.

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Photo above from the Mercados Project

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Seafood Soirée

August 13th, 2014

Join Edible Manhattan and The Water Club for Seafood Soirée, a rooftop feast featuring fresh and sustainable catches from local waters.

The feast will be prepared by The Water Club, with seafood from Dock to Dish alongside cocktails from New York Distillers Guild and beer from the Brooklyn Brewery.

To top it all off - the evening will benefit New Amsterdam Market!

Learn more about Dock to Dish by reading about its Restaurant Supported Fisheries program in Edible Manhattan, and by watching Founder Sean Barrett's talk at TedXMontclair below:

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Fresh Fish:

Imagine opening up access to the waterfront side of the Old Fulton Fish Market, allowing boats to tie-up there, and unloading fresh fish directly to market customers and vendors.

Artist Ginny Maki made this watercolor painting for us, giving us a glimpse into what that could look like.

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91 percent of the seafood Americans eat comes from abroad, but one-third of the seafood Americans catch gets sold to other countries.  Paul Greenberg  is the author of the new book American Catch: The Fight for Our Local Seafood.

Greenberg tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross about what's driving the changes in America's seafood economy. “What I think we're doing is we're low-grading our seafood supply,” he says.  “We're sending the really great, wild stuff that we harvest here on our shores abroad, and in exchange, we're importing farm stuff that, frankly, is of an increasingly dubious nature.”

The U.S. exports the best quality fish because Americans eat only about 15 pounds per capita of seafood a year. That’s about half the global average. There’s incentive to make the seafood cheap, easy and less about taste, which means moving away from local providers:

"We don’t want fish markets in our viewshed. We don’t want to smell them. We don’t want to look at them. So they really have been banished from the center of our cities and sequestered to a corner of our supermarkets.

This is a process that aids all of the facelessness and commodification of seafood. … Seafood has been taken out of the hands of the experts and put into the hands of the traders, so people really cannot identify the specificity of fish anymore. Because supermarkets rely on mass distribution systems, often frozen product, it means that the relationship between coastal producers of seafood is broken and so it’s much easier for them to deal with the Syscos of the world, or these large purveyors that use these massive shrimp operations in Thailand or China, than it is for them to deal with the kind of knotty nature of local fishermen.”

Photograph by Rich Frishman via National Geographic 

A Pike Place Market fishmonger handles the goods at Pure Food Fish Market in Seattle, Washington

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American Catch:

Check out this great interview on NPR Fresh Air with our good friend Paul Greenberg, author of the recently released book American Catch: The Fight for Our Local Seafood.  He has some fascinating things to say about the international seafood economy, fish seasonality, irresponsible sourcing, and the decline of local fish markets.

The image above shows a fishmonger at Pike Place Market in Seattle - a great example of what a stroll into a future marketplace at the Old Fulton Fish Market could look like (Image uploaded by NPR Fresh Air, sourcing information below).

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Doing the twist with a fish:

The Fulton Fish Market in Lower Manhattan was a pretty lively scene by all accounts.  This past April, WNYC posted archival audio from 1962, featuring a number of live sound recordings from the market, including snippets of oral histories and commentaries.  

They included the above picture with the posting, which shows a band playing live at the market and workers dancing with a fish.

Listen to the audio here:

Description:

Before the Fulton Fish Market moved to the Bronx in 2005, nearly 2,000 men spent their early mornings down on South Street between Fulton and Beekman at one of the oldest and busiest open air markets in the country.

The oral histories recorded for this 1962 radio spot are replete with the "things ain't what they used to be" rhetorical flourishes of the market old timers.  But their stories also reflect what must have been an incredibly lively scene, a melting pot of haggling, fish twisting, and commerce that seems all but lost in today's New York City….

Full description can be found at WNYC

Discovered via New York Public Radio Archives on Tumblr

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Inside the Market, 1954

Here's another take on what the Fulton Fish Market can look like with the gates open.  This photo, taken by Walter Albertin in 1954, is included in the Library of Congress archives.  The space abounds with scales, barrels, crates, and baskets, indicating a high amount of activity.

Imagine a 21st Century version of this happening in the same space - small-scale purveyors, regional farmers, and local fisheries all setting up shop and selling their goods for NYC residents and visitors alike.

Related Posts:

Open the Gates

Open the Gates, Part 2 (Photograph and rendering)

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Market Past, Market Future

Seaport resident and photographer Barbara Mensch took this incredible shot of the Tin Building interior while the Fulton Fish Market was still operating, sometime in the late 1980's.  Note the cobblestones of South Street directly connecting the street to this public trading site.  Also note how clean the building was left at the end of each selling day. A few years ago, we showed Barbara's photo to artist Kazuya Morimoto and he created this watercolor rendering of the Tin Building brought back to life with a genuine public market - New Amsterdam Market.

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Open the Gates:

The historic buildings of the Old Fulton Fish Market - otherwise known as the New Market Building and the Tin Building - are currently closed off to the public by a series of metal gates.  You can, however, get a glimpse inside the buildings by passing in front of them via pedestrian paths and bike lanes.

Its interesting to peek inside, but imagine how these pedestrian paths and bike lanes would be improved if the gates opened up to a bustling public market.  There would be more to look at, and it would be a great stop for charging up on local food and drinks.

Photos taken June, 2014 (and filtered via Instagram)

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New Amsterdam Market is now on Tumblr!  

Our mission is to preserve and revitalize the Old Fulton Fish Market in Lower Manhattan as a public market, food hub, and gathering space for all New Yorkers. We will be posting pictures and writings related to markets and events, food and vendors, the history and future of the Fulton Market District, and our campaign to save the Old Fulton Fish Market buildings.

Follow us and help spread the word! #fultonmarketdistrictnyc #savefultonfishmkt

Check out the 2014 schedule and come visit us at the market!

Photo: New Amsterdam Market in September 2009