« Tough Times for Getting a Home Equity Loan Northside Piers Slowly Gaining Businesses »

April 20, 2009

Sunny Skies Grace The Flea's Opening Day

Over 10,000 people made it out to the opening day of the Brooklyn Flea on Saturday to shop, eat, socialize and people watch. A bunch of people have already uploaded photos to Flickr under the "brooklynflea" and "Brooklyn Flea" tags and Metromix has a great slideshow posted already. Twitter, hardly a household name when the Flea opened a year ago, was full of Flea-related tweets this weekend. Below are some excerpts. Thanks to everyone who came out and made it a great day.

dorifern: @scanneremily I'm guessing you hit the Brooklyn Flea yesterday. Hotness (literal and visual) abounded...LilyQ: http://twitpic.com/3kyxi - Tragic Barbie dismemberment at the Brooklyn Flea...theambershow: As usual, I admired John Murphy’s art today at the Brooklyn Flea. So very lovely. http://tumblr.com/xid1m6z04...jillpriluck: Brooklyn flea. Bikram yoga. Brooklyn blooms. Beautiful day...nervousacid: Brunch, bike ride, Brooklyn flea, and buttery grilled corn. Fuck you, winter. You're dead to me...lrhayward: opening day at brooklyn flea is like the first day of spring: filled with hope and excitment for the season to come!...designglut: Going for a run + finally experiencing brooklyn flea + new boots + new scissors + ginger ice cream = Glorious day...murphysarahann: Brooklyn Flea today in Fort Greene - beautiful items and even more beautiful people...carolhan: Brooklyn Flea!!! Antiques, vintage, empanadas, ice cream, boys, sun. What more could a girl want?...skimkim: Brooklyn flea is good for me!...iwasbombed: saw Jeffrey Wright from 007 (at Brooklyn Flea Market)...RadioRose: Ummm the brooklyn flea is crazers...alexandraHOME: Wow Brooklyn flea is packed today!!...James_nyu: The Brooklyn flea rocks...boogieBEE: Im at the brooklyn flea market in bk...lovin it....so much culture...slasser: At brooklyn flea madness. 30 min line for grilled cheese. Its artisnal, so must be worth it...eliz: Just found "Rumours" first pressing on vinyl. Three dollars. I am in love with the Brooklyn Flea.

Trackback Pings

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.brownstoner.com/mte/mt-tb.cgi/9374

Comments

a coworker of mine said she went to the flea this weekend and loved it and wound up getting a mad sunburn!

*rob*

Posted by: PitbullNYC at April 20, 2009 10:24 AM

I went but was not in any of the photos.

so i got that going for me.

Posted by: Santa at April 20, 2009 10:30 AM

Only 4 blacks people (African-American) photographed. There were certainly more than the 4 represented in 3 out of 63 images.

Posted by: Gross at April 20, 2009 11:13 AM

the photographer must really hate black people.

AM I RITE!

Posted by: Santa at April 20, 2009 11:28 AM

Gross, why incite hate? Why rile people up? Seriously what's the point...

Posted by: bklynrosie at April 20, 2009 11:29 AM

We finally went to the flea this weekend for the 1st time. It was pretty fun, we bought a piece of cheese, and some empanadas and strolled around.

Crowd was pretty white, hipster-ish. The silly jug band just outside the gate really made me laugh—oh what the hipsters will do to entertain themselves! : P

Posted by: cobblehiller at April 20, 2009 11:34 AM

MM and I did the Flea several times as vendors. The crowds were very mixed, as were vendors. Don't know if something has changed this year.

Posted by: bxgrl at April 20, 2009 12:01 PM

The tweets...are...poetry! As a Twitter-nope myself, it hurts to admit this, but just look at that lovely fractured mosaic of language...it does a sweeter job conveying the day than I could have done in best Professional Journalist mode, like being able to pass, MRI-slice-style, through the heads of a dozen strangers in one arc. Tweets, at least aggregated ones (a Tweet Concerto?), get my Strange New Respect award of the day!

Posted by: Brenda from Flatbush at April 20, 2009 12:16 PM

I don't think Gross was trying to incite hate. I thought the same thing too. Looking at this article reminded me about the Nelson George piece a couple of weeks ago. The lack of folks of color in these photos, even in the background, struck me.

Posted by: roofrights at April 20, 2009 1:28 PM

my guess is that the "black people" who were there thought getting your picture taken at a flea market is a little um, i dont know, dumb? they probably just didnt want their pictures taken.

*rob*

Posted by: PitbullNYC at April 20, 2009 2:18 PM

No hate from me, just caught me as odd. Maybe Pb NYC is right, maybe the photographer made a choice maybe not.

What is more interesting is that a raising the question is inciting hate. In fact, I would suggest we talk about race more and "rile people up" if that is what talk about race does.

Says more about you than me.

Point taken.
No more inciting. No riling people up. Forgive me for saying "Black People" minus the typo.

Posted by: Gross at April 20, 2009 2:57 PM

REALLY? come on, people, let's just move forward. good grief. It's a FLEA market. people are having fun eating, bumping into friends, buying weird old things. There's noone stopping anyone from entering the gates based on race. If the majority of the black people in the neighborhood aren't interested in that then let it be. I saw plenty there. they were, much like their white counterparts, primarily artsy/hipster types, but there were exceptions, just as with the white people. give it a break already. My kids go to schools with white kids and black kids and none of this comes up.

Posted by: miss priss at April 20, 2009 3:45 PM

Gross,

How's THIS for a multi-racial photograph?

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3641/3456874639_0c07253b3f_o.jpg

For some reason, my Flea photos don't show up under the "brooklynflea" tag, even though I tagged them, but, in case anyone's interested"

http://www.flickr.com/photos/25605294@N00/sets/72157616972287493/

Posted by: Bob Marvin at April 20, 2009 4:22 PM

Here's a corrected URL for my bklynflea photos from Saturday (which don't show up under the flickr tag):

http://www.flickr.com/photos/25605294@N00/sets/72157616972287493/

Posted by: Bob Marvin at April 20, 2009 4:31 PM

Argh!@#&!

The URL is too long to paste--one more try:

http://tinyurl.com/cm8hp9

Posted by: Bob Marvin at April 20, 2009 4:36 PM

Is it just me, or is this whole Brooklyn Flea phenomenon just a tad bit self-congratulatory and....creepily image conscious? I've been flea marketing since I was a teenager - and loved the Chelsea flea market in MHTN, the Park Slope flea market in BKLYN, and especially loved going to decrepit little road side antique shops on car trips - not for the artisinal cheese and the Belgian waffles, but because I like old stuff, the craftsmanship, the artistry, and the love of the hunt for some item that appealed to me at a reasonable price.

While I've indeed seen things I like at the Brooklyn Flea, I find the whole vibe to be infuriatingly manufactured, much like the entirety of Bedford-centric Williamsburg. I'm white, and would probably be classified as an (aging) hipster, but seriously, it makes me want to vomit to listen to people wax poetic about how "hot" a flea market's patrons were and to "Tweet" to their buddies. It's all surface soundbites, and no substance.

Posted by: Inquisigal2 at April 20, 2009 10:43 PM

I agree with Inquisigal2 and then some. It's a post-modern flea market. Of course, if someone is of a certain age, all they have ever known is post-modernity, so it probably suits them just fine and who am I to judge? As for this truly middle-aged hipster: went once, won't be back. When I was in my twenties, I wrote a song with the chorus, "There's always more things to buy. There's always more things, always more things, always more things to buy."

Posted by: altervoce at April 21, 2009 9:43 AM

I don't like the flea b/c they don't allow dogs. They allow kids, but no dogs. It's just not right!

Posted by: grip100692 at April 21, 2009 1:15 PM

I don't like the flea b/c they don't allow dogs. They allow kids, but no dogs. It's just not right!

Posted by: grip100692 at April 21, 2009 1:15 PM