Manhattan used to be the Place Where You Could Get Anything. Everything had its own district, from flowers to fabrics to fish.
The meat packing district—now best known as home to Sex and the City’s Samantha and the perennially popular Pastis — may still have a few butchers selling beef, but they’ve mostly been squeezed out by high-end boutiques and bistros. The fabric district’s been cut up by development and high rents are uprooting the flower market.
One-of-a-kind businesses are being driven to the outer boroughs, turning Manhattan into The Place Where You Can Get All the Same Stuff You Can Get Anywhere Else.
The latest victim is the Fulton Fish Market, whose days have been numbered for years. Last Friday, the country’s oldest and largest wholesale fish market marked its final day after 184 years in lower Manhattan.
On Monday, the fish sellers started hawking their halibut in the brand new Hunts Point facility in the Bronx. The state-of-the-art $85 million market offers amenities like working toilets and climate control. The old market was positively Dickensian by comparison.
Still, the fishmongers are ambivalent. They won’t miss the rats, or the inclement weather. But the new indoor market has no windows; no more watching the sun rise over the Brooklyn Bridge.
The smell that hung over the Fulton Fish Market for nearly two centuries has already dissipated, and soon there’ll be no vestige left. Developers will build, and chain stores will follow. Call it progress, but I think it kind of stinks.
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