The hunt is back on, now with snacks. Photo: Jeff Greenberg/Universal Images Group via Getty New York is hardly itself again, but among the seedlings of recovery that are pushing through the cracks in the concrete, here’s one that comes just in time for crisp autumn weekend mornings: The durable, uneven, grungy, beloved Chelsea Flea Market comes back on Saturdays and Sundays starting September 12. It’ll open at 8 a.m.
It’s a comeback twice over, because the market last winter went through a near-death experience well before the city closed down. At the end of 2019, the flea’s founder, Alan Boss, lost his lease on the 25th Street lot, and the whole thing seemed to be a goner. Then the business was picked up by the team behind the Brooklyn Flea and Smorgasburg, which had planned, before the COVID crisis hit, to reopen it in April.
As is true in most New York retailing, the past decade’s real-estate pressure and increasing wealth have been hard on the Chelsea Flea. At one point in the late 1980s, give or take, the market sprawled over seven vacant lots, with hundreds of vendors selling an immense array of vintage and antique stuff. Andy Warhol bought kitsch there; Al Goldstein’s collections were cashed out there after he went broke. The stuff for sale ranged from great to ghastly, often at the same time.
Today, all but one of those empty lots have been filled up with giant condo towers. The market is down to one parking lot on 25th Street, although a couple of nearby satellite businesses sell antique and vintage stuff as well. Because it’s so much smaller than it was, your odds of finding a perfect gem amid the shlock are necessarily reduced.
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