Reimagining Essex Street Market
How the move of a 78-year-old market owned by the city will redefine a Manhattan neighborhood that’s rich with immigrant history.
By Madeleine Crenshaw, additional reporting by Paula Moura
On the corner of Essex and Delancey Street stands Essex Street Market, a 78-year-old market that resembles a slice of old New York.
Customers both young and old mill about inside the market, buying ingredients from their favorite stalls who supply tropical fruits, freshly caught fish, and Indian spices. It’s a humble, hidden gem of the Lower East Side — where vendors know their customers by a first name basis and most importantly their orders by heart. But with the market’s crumbling infrastructure and slow foot traffic, the city, who owns the market has decided that it will be absorbed into Essex Crossing, a large, shiny mixed-use development coming to the neighborhood.
“For me, personally it’s sad, but I’m also excited for the new building,” said José Marmolejo, who runs Puebla Mexican Food with his mother, Irma at Essex Street Market.
José Marmolejo and his mother, Irma, work seven days a week at their stall inside Essex Street Market. At the new building they will have more space and ability to hire more staff.
Photo by Madeleine Crenshaw.
For the Marmolejo's, Essex Street Market has enabled them to continue their legacy of cooking up authentic Mexican food in the Lower East Side. For almost two decades, the Marmolejo's and their extended family ran a Mexican restaurant just a few blocks away from Essex Street Market.
In 2015, they were forced to close their family restaurant after the landlord raised the rent. That summer, Irma, José's mother, decided to open a smaller version at Essex Street Market after learning about the affordable options.
"At first my mom was just gonna quit, but a regular customer who was familiar with the market and asked if she was interested because stalls were available," said Marmolejo.
The market stalls operate below the market rate, allowing local vendors like the Marmolejo's to sustain their business in the neighborhood, rather than shut down like many family-owned businesses in the Lower East Side as the neighborhood continues to gentrify.
Essex Street Market has provided a place for their old customers to reminiscence over familiar flavors and a different time in the neighborhood, but the seven day work weeks and small kitchen make it difficult to continue the mother-son-dynamic for much longer - -giving the move for the Marmolejo's a bit of a silver lining.
The New York City Economic Development Committee, NYCEDC, the city-owned corporation who owns the market has promised vendors that their rents would stay the same at the new location of Essex Street Market. At the new market, the Marmolejo's stall will be larger. It will also be in the "after hours" section of the market, which will be open until 10 p.m. Marmolejo says these factors will allow them to hire more staff. Currently, Marmolejo and his mother work seven days a week at the market.
"We're going to be able to run like a real restaurant again," said Marmolejo.
The anticipation of Essex Street Market moving has been in the air for quite a while now. For years, the site of Essex Crossing was vacant, and eventually made into a parking lot after years of conflicting views on what should replace the tenements that were razed in 1967 under the notorious city planner Robert Moses.
Years later, the Bloomberg administration announced that the swatch of land would become Essex Crossing, a large scale development, complete with affordable housing and mixed-use buildings. In an effort to balance both the new and old residents of the Lower East Side, the plan also involved a new home for Essex Street Market.
