flea market in brooklyn

I sat down with the assignment and didn’t quite know what to write about. I’ve lived Upper East Side every time I’ve been in New York and I still do. I have friends whose kids I’m babysitting in West Village, I love walking around in Soho and Central Park is amazing. Thinking about New York made me realize two things: I have been in many places around the city, but also the fact that they’re all situated in Manhattan. Sure, my ex-boyfriend’s house was in Long Island and when arriving to New York and JFK you pass through Queens but that’s about as much exploring of the city I’ve managed to do so far. I approached this issue by bringing it up to my two roommates and friends. 

One of them, Michaela had never even been in NYC prior to her arrival 10 days ago and all she has seen aside from the view from the cab she took from Newark airport in New Jersey is Manhattan, mainly Upper East and Lower West. We haven’t even brought ourselves to go sightseeing, so none of us has seen Empire State building, The Statue of Liberty or The Guggenheim Museum. My other friend, Amanda has been in NYC more than Michaela but less than me but still happens to know her way around almost as good as I do inspite of the fact that I actually lived here for 4 months last year. Amanda’s sister spent some time in NYC and Amanda stayed with her for a week in her apartment in Williamsburg in Brooklyn. According to the sister, Lovisa, there is a flea market taking place there every Saturday and Sunday. She suggested an adventure for me to write about in the blog and I was excited to go there for the experience and the kind of used vintage items I was hoping to lay my hands on. 

I woke up at 10 am the morning of the adventure and after boiling a couple of eggs and getting ready  (which for some reason always takes us hours and hours) we walked from our apartment to the Metro at the corner of 86^th street and Lexington Avenue to take the 4-train all the way to Brooklyn. The subway was crowded and way too hot for the jeans and long sleeved T-shirt I was wearing and I felt ill, standing there at the hectic platform. A couple of men entered the train soon after us and played music and instruments to an applauding audience and that quickly put me in a better mood. We got to our stop at Atlantic Avenue but we had not yet reached our destination, for the question remained: where was the flea market located? I found a poster that read “FLEA MARKET, PACIFIC AVENUE AND 4^TH STREET” but it was after passing it the second time that we realized that the dates on the poster said 20-21 August. We asked a woman in a nearby Deli and finally got directions to the market after almost an hour in the intense heat and sun. To our delight the market was indoors and I was happy and relieved when I entered the air-conditioned building. 

I’ve been at flea markets before (there is a fabulous one over at Upper West Side) but this was definitely extraordinary. The different stands offered everything from jewelry to worn clothes, old bags and used furniture but everything seemed surprisingly clean which made the whole experience even more enjoyable. In the middle of everything they sold tiny cup cakes, old fashioned and vintage looking as if my deceased grandmother had made them decades ago in a household somewhere in Sweden. The rings and necklaces were art deco and probably purchased at Bergdorf Goodman by a wealthy woman in the 1960’s. The winter coats oozed luxury with their fur-collars and gold buttons and had most likely been ridiculously expensive 50 years ago but could now be ours for a couple of hundred dollars. There is something special with vintage. It’s a two-faced word, both amazing and rather solemn. Vintage tells us stories from past generations that are no longer around to share their own tales, it reminds us of something that used to be; something that once was full of life and taste and scent and energy and now remains as an old coat on a rack in the back of a store or in a basement full of forgotten things. As I walked through the mixed crowd I couldn’t help but wonder whom that breath taking Hermés Kelly-bag belonged to, who wandered the snowy winter streets in New York with that fur-covered hat and who the person was who wore those black leather shoes that looked like they had been transferred here directly from the 1850’s. Who was the child in the black and white photo and what stories could that old camera tell? 

My friends ended up buying a bag full of things but I only found one piece that I wanted. It was a ring made of the most beautiful turquoise stone I’ve ever seen. It reminded me of someone I used to know and once I held it in my hand I knew I had to buy it. 

I left the flea market with a cup cake to go, thinking about my grandmother as I was eating it, and we moved on to a restaurant around the corner we decided to have lunch at. Although it was passed 3 pm they still served brunch and we ordered pancakes, eggs, sandwiches and orange juice before we headed home to Manhattan with the 4-train, with a fuller stomach, emptier wallet and a whole lot of happiness. 

Johanna Pettersson