Brooklyn Flea: Time Lapse
Thanks to all the vendors and visitors who came out to the inaugural Brooklyn Flea yesterday. By some miracle, it didn’t rain and the day went off without a hitch. While some of them were double-counts to be sure, the security guard at the door clicked off 20,000 entries into the market throughout the day….
Thanks to all the vendors and visitors who came out to the inaugural Brooklyn Flea yesterday. By some miracle, it didn’t rain and the day went off without a hitch. While some of them were double-counts to be sure, the security guard at the door clicked off 20,000 entries into the market throughout the day. Insane. We’ll have more candids up later in the day. If you took photos, please put them up on Flickr and tag with “brooklynflea”; if you a post a big Flickr set, please email us with a link. We also want to hear your feedback about vendor mix and other suggestions. Obviously we need more food; unfortunately dealing with the Department of Health isn’t exactly a simple and transparent process, but we’re working on it. Personally, we want to see more furniture and classic category-killers like antique silver and old watches; maybe a little less new jewelry and arts-and-crafty stuff. This first month will be a gradually tweaking and culling process, so please throw in your two cents.
7:00 a.m.
8:15 a.m.
8:35 a.m.
9:35 a.m.
10:15 a.m.
11:00 a.m.
12:00 p.m.
13:15 p.m.
3:00 p.m.
4:30 p.m.
5 p.m.
5:15 p.m.
5:40 p.m.
6:20 p.m.
i was the one vending the vintage nike sneakers. you want vintage? you got vintage.
bargains? i was shouting to everyone everything is negotiable within reason. did any buyers try bargaining? that’s what the flea market is about.
i didn’t turn anyone down. a nice woman and her daughter from buenos aires wanted a pair for her boyfriend. i hooked her up – list was $60, i sold it for $40, while speaking in spanish. a repeat customer came back a few hours after buying one pair, i sold him another pair for a discount.
thanks to eric and brownstoner for hooking us up with the primo spot in the center. we made over $900 and that was ONLY selling size 9 and 9.5s!!!
we’ll be back may 11 – with size 11 and 11.5’s for those with bigger feet.
i’ll be back as a browser/buyer next weekend!
i saw a bunch of yellow cabs bringing in our friends from manhattan also.
I don’t want to say I was disappointed, but this event should not have been titled a “flea market”. Something about having neighborhood stores selling brand new baby clothes is a huge turn off. If this is a way of selling Brooklyn to Manhattan, then you have been successful, but it is lacking a huge amount of “bargains” and “finds” that are usually associated with flea markets. Also, one note on Fort Greene togetherness- if you lived there, you would know that the “flea market” was not needed for that. I think to be accurate, you should re-name it “Brooklyn Street Fair” or “Screen Printing Fair”. Also, I hope that this street fair does not stop the Bishop Laughlin sidewalk sales- those are really worth checking out this summer. Great food, fun treasures hunting. Wish it were worth the one block walk.
I agree…food is not a necessity at all.
And yeah, that seemed alot more like the Craft Fair in wburg or that Arts and Fleas market also in wburg.
If you get an actual flea market going out of this, that would be great.
Another thing I noticed…the demographic was nothing like the one you still see at the remaining Chelsea Markets. When I go to the Garage market I see people of all ages, older more eccentric vendors, a real hodge podge of people. The Brownstoner market on the other hand was wall to wall skinny jean types which is incredibly dull.
fleamarket without fleas
get rid of all the arty farty stuff, no silk screen shirts and baby cloth.
if you want croissants and coffee just walk a block and support the neighbourhood shops.
i love the idea of the fleamarket but make it a fleamarket with vintage stuff, furniture,… like the old one in chelsea, that’s what everybody is looking for.
if you want silk screen shirts go to williamsburg if you want baby stuff go to park slope
anyway, great start!!!! make it happen 😉
we only had time to walk swiftly through the flea once but as a vendor of a new line of kid’s stuff we did extremely well. we’re artists looking for a better day job and this was alot more fun than our corporate work – our point also was to be able to sell originally designed clothes at half the boutique cost and the market lets us do so. i don’t really understand all the knee-jerk hate reactions to babies and families, most of these parents are as much new yorkers as anybody single and without kids.
jg
Did you all know that this Flea Market was sponsored by http://www.diehipster.com ?
we only had time to walk swiftly through the flea once but as a vendor of a new line of kid’s stuff we did extremely well. we’re artists looking for a better day job and this was alot more fun than our corporate work – our point also was to be able to sell originally designed clothes at half the boutique cost and the market lets us do so. i don’t really understand all the knee-jerk hate reactions to babies and families, most of these parents are as much new yorkers as anybody single and without kids.
jg
I chickened out and didn’t go because it was so cold. Frustrating, too, because I was in urgent need of a stack of ironic onesies.
OMG, literati of Brooklyn: there you have it, the title for the ultimate book about yuppie one-child families. My gift.
Sorry about my double post. My computer posts easier if I register, so I did.
Just a note to Jon and Eric. You guys did a great job organizing and staffing the Flea. I appreciating your coming around to chat, the security people, who were all very nice, and the overall convivial atmosphere of vendors towards each other. I believe you will be very successful in this.