LAST December something strange took place at the abandoned Fulton Fish Market on South Street: Fishermen came and sold fish.
On what would turn out to be the coldest day of the winter, a dozen-odd mongers trundled down to the Tin Building in their beat-up vans and pickups. They wrote the day’s prices on chalkboards, stacked their wares on ice in wooden crates and, when throngs of shoppers appeared, they managed to sell quite a bit of porgy, pollock, flounder, tilefish, monkfish, clams, crabs and oysters — everything that to this day still swims in New York State’s bountiful waters. In a bid for the market’s freshest fish, live, Bronx-farmed tilapia were also on offer.
The Fulton Fish Market, located on the southeast side of Manhattan, is a fixture in New York lore, even though the formal operation moved to the Bronx seven years ago. Sadly, despite clear evidence that New Yorkers are willing to return — in droves, even in freezing weather — Fulton’s historic buildings are being left to rot even as the rest of the adjacent waterfront is about to get a slick, commercialized makeover.
December’s one-day “Gathering of Fisheries” was staged by New Amsterdam Market, an economic development corporation founded in 2005 to promote the preservation of the two empty Fulton Fish Market buildings and their revival as a regional food distribution center, cultural destination and vital anchor to the South Street Seaport historic district.
Read the complete opinion piece from The New York Times