Top sitesTop blogs
Friendly BlogsReviewsPeriodicalsChurch
|
Wallabout Market
The market featured permanent two-story brick structures designed in a nostalgic Dutch style, commemorating the Netherlandish origins of New York and Brooklyn, centered around an open plaza known as Farmers’ Square where stalls were erected. The centerpiece was a tall clock tower, seen at right and further below. The market buzzed with activity from about midnight until just after dawn, by which time trading had died down. During the majority of the daylight hours the vast market stood empty.  Wallabout Market was an unfortunate victim of World War II when the Navy Yard expanded to seven times its previous size, gobbling up the land the Market was built on. New York’s primary market today is in Hunts Point – the largest terminal produce market in the world – though Brooklyn still has its own terminal market at Foster and Remsen Avenues between 83rd and 87th. 
This post was published on Thursday, December 30th, 2004 2:33 pm. It has been categorised under Architecture New York. Click here to view comments or respond.
|
Recent PostsRecent Comments
Monthly ArchivesCategoriesDonateClick here to make a financial contribution towards the expense of maintaining andrewcusack.com.RemembrancesRecommended
|
|
|
7 Comments so far
Post a comment
|
3:31 pm
When I lived there I always felt like a big chunk of neighborhood was somehow missing. And now photographic proof! It’s difficult to imagine how many times the sliver of a neighborhood that’s left has been requisitioned and repurposed over the past 400 years. It would be so nice if the Navy Yard still contained a nice market, definitely seems like a lot of ‘Vinegar Hill Adjacent’ waterfront is squandered in the way the Navy Yard complex is presently used.
In 2007 I lived a block from the Navy Yard on Cumberland Street. There are only two blocks North of Park Ave/The BQE/Walt Whitman Houses and they were/are almost completely devoid of restaurants, delis, laundromats… really anything.
The lack of ’stuff’ definitely does more to kill the quality of life than the BQE, methadone clinic(s), power plant, or being surrounded by half-empty decaying Housing Projects on 3 sides. Consequently, most people do all that they can to avoid living there. Conceptually… it would be a very nice place to live, if it had ‘stuff.’
1:55 pm
During a story, my grandmother (born 1899) mentioned that someone had called her “a Wallabout Market dock rat.” Must have been a prominent feature in her day.
10:24 pm
My g-g-g-g-grandfather John Henry and his son William had a ropewalk and heckeling loft in Williamsburg near the approach to the Wnsbg Bridge. Dated approx 1815-30
and many of my ancestors talked of Wallabout mkt. It is assumed the ropewalk was purchased to be demolished as it straddled the planned development of blocks near the river and the construction of the bridge. If you have any info I would be very interested.
11:24 am
Any information concerning merchants at Wallabout Market, specifically P (Philip) Silberman and Sons would be greatly appreciated.
3:14 pm
A very informative article, except the photograph credit lines seem to be missing or am I just not seeing them? The photograph at the top is from Brooklyn Public Library–Brooklyn Collection, call # NEIG 1626
http://bk.ly/uai.
10:54 pm
Would like to hear from anyone who has info on my grandfather’s or father’s (Jacob/Milton Sorgen) fruit and vegetable business in the market during the first half of the twentieth century, Thanks.
9:44 pm
My mother’s family were Irish immigrants who migrated to Brooklyn to work in the Navy Yard in the 1850′s. My father owned and operated a trucking business in the Wallabout Market from the late 1920′s and moved with the Market to the Brooklyn Terminal Market during WWII. Farmers Square was never the same.
If one knows the origin of the Wallabout name one should also know where Vinegar Hill got its name.