Vendors' Fate at Williamsburg Market Still Uncertain

Photo: Food of the Future

The East Williamsburg Moore Street Retail Market is one of four remaining city-run public markets built during the tail end of the Depression; opened by Mayor Fiorello La Guardia in 1941, the Brooklyn market was created to clear the streets of unhygienic peddlers and monitor the scales for customers. Today the market is occupied by 13 vendors selling mostly tropical produce, roots and other ethnic foods to the local Hispanic community.

But not for long; in June the city’s Economic Development Corporation [EDC], abruptly told the vendors that the building would be demolished and replaced with affordable housing, offering them $20 per square foot if they vacated their stalls. But problems emerged when it was discovered that the EDC didn’t consult the local community board about their plans, which is required by city land use laws. The market won a one year reprieve, but with time running out, their fate remains precariously unresolved.

The EDC claims the market’s low rent and high overhead has resulted in a $1 million deficit during the past four years. Under the EDC proposal, the merchants would relocate to a strip of storefronts in a public housing development. But district assemblyman Vito J. Lopez, who is rallying to preserve the market, wants to know why the EDC has left 4 stalls empty despite inquiries from other vendors: “We would probably have a third less deficit if it was fully occupied.”

As it stands now, the remaining vendors are still required to move out by June. And there’s a great clipping from a 1941 New York Times article on the market’s opening here.