Brooklyn Flea

When you find one of the items above, which can be hidden in any vendor booth, it’s yours, absolutely free! Then we post your photo with the generous vendor here on the blog on Tuesday. You can only win once per calendar month. Items posted every Friday.

From left (click to enlarge):

Saturday, October 1 (Fort Greene): Original turn of the 20th century medical lithograph plate with 5 surprising layers underneath. Vintage

Sunday, October 2 (Williamsburg): 1960's Keystone 8mm projector in working condition. Vintage

Note: The Flea happens outdoors every Saturday in Fort Greene and every Sunday in Williamsburg. The markets are open every weekend, 10am–5pm, rain or shine. For maps/directions, click here.

Beyond the Jewish New Year event and our exciting newbie this week, many Smorgasburgers have added new menu items and products to their lineups. Here's a selection of what's in store, fresh for fall, for Saturday, October 1.

- The Brooklyn Bean Co. is going hot for the first time, featuring turkey chili and a vanilla soy hot chocolate.
- D'Vine & Olive has brought in a few bottles of Apollo Olive Oil, the product's first time sold on the east coast. 
- Granola Lab is bringing granola-topped pies that will be sold by the slice: pear-ginger pie topped with Get Gingersnapping and an apple-cardamom pie topped with Cranberry Cashew Compound.
- Salud is adding its own Mexican hot chocolate mix (above) to its menu of fresh fruit drinks and smoothies.
- The Stand is now selling damson plum jam with tarragon using fruit from Red Jacket.

Rubirosa - Straight from their success at the San Gennaro festival (way to revolutionize the food at the fest!) the super hot Nolita restaurant Rubirosa will be at Smorg for the first time this Saturday. On the menu you'll find mini braciole sandwiches (pictured left), meatball sliders and cannoli. Classics all around.

Jewish New Year - In celebration of the Jewish High Holidays, Smorgasburg has gathered a group of vendors to sell tasty and traditional Jewish foods. Regulars Skytown, Mighty Quinn's, Chozen and Roberta's Bread are participating, along with new-to-Smorg vendors like Acme Smoked Fish and Shelsky's Smoked Fish. Click here for more information on the event. L'Shana Tova!

The Flea has never had the honor of touting a duck fat cookie, but there is a first time for everything. This weekend welcomes a slew of new folks, from experienced antique dealers to a brand-new design company.

Saturday, Oct. 1 (Brooklyn Flea in Fort Greene):

Fats and Flour - These are very simple cookies…made with rendered animal fats. Here's the rather radical menu: shortbread made with lard; ginger snaps made with bacon grease; oatmeal cookies made with duck fat; Chinese five spice cookies made with lard; and double chocolate and smoked sea salt made with butter. They'll also be serving up a little savory treat of baguette with pork and duck confit, along with salted caramel iced coffee.

Little Fury - Little Fury is a small design studio in NYC that in 2011 launched Start Here Mart, a collection of  functional, pretty things (like the Beech alarm clock, above) made by independent designers and craftsmen. Five percent of all proceeds are donated to Healing Haiti and Opportunity International.

Touch of Grey - Look for nautical lighting, repurposed items, miscellaneous antiques and other funky stuff from a longtime antique pro who will be at the market both days, in Fort Greene and Williamsburg.

Sunday, Oct. 2 (Brooklyn Flea in Williamsburg):

All Star Posters - These old-school sellers are offering vintage and rare movie posters, World's Fair items (1939/1964), photographs, maps, art work, NYC/Brooklyn items and license plates, as well as a huge collection of sports merchandise.

Empire Delicious - Empire Delicious started as a decorating blog in 2007 and recently launched a website and line of accessories for decorating and entertaining. The Empire Delicious line includes cocktail party kits, coasters and cocktail napkins; ribbon boxes filled with letterpress gift tags and ribbons; throw pillows; limited edition prints; bar and tableware; and stationery both custom and pre-made.

The Quality Mending Co. - A smart collection of vintage menswear  and accessories, along with some lighting and small furniture.

In celebration of the upcoming Jewish High Holidays—Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur and Sukkhot—we have invited some of our friends to serve up tasty, traditional Jewish specialties for any food-loving New Yorker to enjoy!

On Saturday, October 1, Smorgasburg attendees will see a special section featuring iconic Jewish foods from some of New York’s favorite vendors. Devour delicious brisket from Mighty Quinn and fresh-baked challah from Roberta’s Bread. Skytown will serve up variations on stuffed cabbage and hamantaschen (pictured above), a treat we haven't seen from them in months. Get your smoked-fish fix with Acme’s herring in wine or nova lox, as well as their famous whitefish salad, then stop over at Shelsky’s Smoked Fish for some homemade gelfilte. For dessert, Chozen Ice Cream will scoop their traditional flavors, including apples & honey and Ronne’s rugelach. (With many thanks going to to Meredith of Chozen for organizing this great group of vendors!)

So whether this is your first taste of gelfilte fish or you are a seasoned pro, it doesn’t take a Jewish background to enjoy all the delicious offerings at Smorgasburg this Saturday. L'Shana Tova! (Happy New Year!)

Remember that cool vintage toy shop that used to be across the street from the Film Forum on West Houston Street? That's these guys—Steve and Gary of Alphaville, who have been selling at the Flea since March of last year. They shuttered their shop in January 2010, after 16 years of trading in space-age games, French dolls from the 1930s, vintage sunglasses, classic cartoon characters and their own line of retro-futuristic greeting cards and magnets. All that and more is now found at the Flea, where Alphaville continues to provide a memory-jolting retail experience. (You'll likely hear, I had that when I was a kid!)

The toys that were produced in the middle of the last century are far superior to today's specimens, says Steve. "Those toys were made of tin, cast iron, wood and hard plastic, wonderfully designed and packaged, featuring beautiful colors and lithography. It's sad—Gary and I feel it’s the end of an era of magnificently designed toys." And while we fret over lead paint and choking hazards, we should also mourn the loss of design and detail. "Toys started becoming rounded and plastic [in the early '70s]," Steve explains. "Today, if you look at a pile of new toys on a floor it’s a crime to the eyes. Absolutely none of these will look good on a shelf twenty years from now. And now it’s all about electronics—it leaves no room for imagination."

The duo have been in the collecting biz since 1989, when together they bought a pick-up (though neither of them knew how to drive stick) and headed out to a toy show—so began years of traveling around to dig deep for those special finds. "It’s exciting to go out in the world, as in a great treasure hunt," Steve says, "searching and looking and then finding these great treasures. They could be dusty on a shelf or under a box. The fun is in the search."

Once it's ready to sell though, that's another story—with the truck long gone, how to haul the entirety of a Brooklyn Flea booth to the market every weekend? On the subway of course. "We have our moving caravan of two shopping carts that fit our entire weekend inventory!" Steve says. "Basically, we get up, have our coffee, wheel 'em out and down a few blocks, down the elevator to the subway (empty of people at six in the morning), Gary snaps open his book to read, me, my NY Times, and every week we say, 'we’re here already!'”

Steve says that he and Gary love the Flea because of the community setting—they've made new friends with vendors and get to interact with customers all day long. (When you have a store, "there are many moments of solitude," Steve reminds us, "many.") The West Village's loss is our gain, and Steve agrees: "Being at The Flea is a much desired, smaller scale, streamlined version of us."

For lack of a clever connection between a rusty lantern and a book about dogs, we'll just say congratulations to our winners and thanks to our generous vendors for donating these awesome Scavenger Hunt prizes. As always, we'll be back next week—check the blog Friday at noon for the next round of the Hunt.

From left, click images to enlarge.

Saturday, Sept 24 (Fort Greene): The newly declared winners of the old-fashioned oil lantern were Mike and Danielle (center and right) from New Jersey. In town for the weekend, they were Flea first-timers—welcome! They plan to use the lantern to decorate their fire pit. (Fire pit? Obviously not Brooklynites.)

Kings County Salvage is one of those Flea success stories that we like to brag about. Owner Val grew her business from a Flea stand to a brick-and-mortar shop in South Williamsburg, selling a sharply curated selection of the coolest farm and factory salvage that's available on the market. From wood boxes and folding chairs to groovy glassware and vintage signage, the old-timey aesthetic is on the mark. When Val opened up her store earlier this year, we wrote a post about her journey from Flea seller to shop owner—stop by her spot at the sandpit in Fort Greene and by the water in Williamsburg, where you'll find her every week.

Sunday, Sept. 25 (Williamsburg): Sunday's winner was Susie Steiner (center), an ex-New Yorker now living in Tampa, Florida. She's back for a visit to NYC and the Flea was high up on her to-do list, as it should be! The dog book (published in 1998, and with a great title: If Only You Knew How Much I Smell You: True Portraits of Dogs) was very apropos—Susie is the proud owner of two Great Danes and a Pug mix.

Mix Gallery is a long-time seller at Fort Greene and One Hanson, and now Williamsburg too.  They are known for vintage furniture and women's accessories—great belts and handbags especially—but proprietors Andy and Chery couldn't resist donating the dog book since "Fleasters are a very dog-conscious," Andy observes. True! The couple run a shop in Lambertville, NJ, where they sell more of their extensive collection of furniture, art objects, vintage jewelry and accessories.

Lots of links and kind words from publications big and small. The Flea is everywhere!

Travel + Leisure goes local in Fort Greene and visits the Brooklyn Flea's top stands.

Lucky magazine checks out the country's best markets and we're in there of course! We especially like the nice photo of a vintage picnic set from Flea vendor Betty's Kitschen.

Bon Appétit names Smorgasburg one of the Top Artisan Food Markets in America. Check out the photos of Bon Chovie, Cemita's and the lovely Nicole from Sea Bean Goods.

Australian Vogue took a very fashionable trip to the Flea.

Digital mag Sweet Paul showcased their very pretty photos from Smorgasburg.

Over on Vimeo, a Flea shopper named Tran Truong made a super sweet video of his day along the waterfront.

On the hyper-local tip, the Bushwick Daily blog spent a Sunday at the Flea, with some great snapshots to prove it.

Plus, some of our vendors have gone all mainstream media, including Shane da Bikejack and Slant Shack Jerky in the Wall Street Journal.

(Photo via Bushwick Daily)

We couldn't be happier to announce that the team from Solber Pupusas won the coveted Vendy Award for serving the best street food in New York City—an honor that is frankly long overdue. At the awards ceremony that took place on Saturday afternoon on Governors Island, and with stiff competition from the city's best food trucks, longtime Flea/Smorg and Red Hook vendors Rafael, Reina and Cesar were awarded the top prize, the coveted Vendy Cup. The pupusa crew has been with the Flea since Day One, they were our first food stars, and our hearts swell with pride at this incredible recognition. Three cheers and a million congratulations to Solber Pupusas!

Read the rest of this entry »

The most exciting two-wheel news to hit NYC in some time was the announcement of the city's bike-share program. "Bike share is a network of thousands of bicycles available at self-service docking stations around the city," says the Dept. of Transportation; the plan is for the membership-based program to launch in summer 2012, with bikes available throughout the five boroughs. (Council Member Tish James suggested the Flea as one of the Brooklyn station locations.) Part of a series of demonstration events in coming weeks, the Flea is proud to showcase the program at the Fort Greene Flea on Saturday—a model station will be set up outside the main entrance on Lafayette Ave. You'll be able to learn more about the concept, try out the bikes, see how the kiosks work and pick up fun bike swag. So cool!