Brooklyn Flea Is Leaving Williamsburg for DUMBO
According to Brooklyn Paper, Brooklyn Flea is moving out of its longtime home along the Williamsburg Waterfront, on the concrete block now known as 50 Kent, to a smaller lot in DUMBO, as the city inches ever closer to its overhaul of the waterfront area with the long-awaited completion of Bushwick Inlet Park. It looks like the move could be a permanent one, too. “We don’t have any plans to move back now,” said Flea co-founder Eric Demby, “but we’ll see how it goes.”
The move will allow the city to clean the 50 Kent space–specifically to clear it of any “toxic waste,” reports the paper, disconcertingly, before Bushwick Inlet Park expands there.
Brooklyn Flea’s new home in DUMBO will be near the archway of the Manhattan Bridge, and it won’t cover as much ground as its former space. And, as suits its more well-heeled neighbors, co-founder Demby says Brooklyn Flea DUMBO will have a bigger selection of more expensive vintage clothes and antiques, but not as many goods made by hand, like the kind vended up north.
DUMBO, for its part, is amped. “We’re thrilled to welcome Flea to DUMBO,” Clara Schuhmacher, director of communications for DUMBO Business Improvement District, said of the market, which first opened in Fort Greene in 2008. “It’s a treat for our residents and workforce to have the market in our backyard.” It is, however, not the market’s first time in DUMBO; Flea also had a small presence there in 2008, and its food-based wing, Smorgasburg, had set up shop in an old DUMBO warehouse in 2012.
Meanwhile, Williamsburg neighbors are likely not too sad to see it go: previously, they had complained that perpetual markets used too much of East River State Park’s open space, which did not leave as much time for quiet blanket-lounging and picnicking as they wanted. But it is not the end of the business’s presence in Williamsburg; Smorgasburg will remain at East River State Park, and the season starts soon: opening weekend begins Saturday, April 2.
Brooklyn Flea DUMBO at Pearl Plaza, 50 Adams St., DUMBO. Shopping begins Sunday, April 3, from 10am – 5pm.