The Indomitable Rise of the Food Hall
Consumers and vendors reap the benefits of this new sustainable market model
In May 2019, the new Essex Market opened in New York City’s Lower East Side.
The Market has existed in the area for over 100 years and gone through a number of incarnations. Starting as an open air market for independent pushcart sellers in the 1880s, it found a permanent home in the 1940s. Its four buildings, housing 475 vendors, soon became a social hub for the city’s Jewish and Italian immigrant communities that lived in the area.
The market and diversity of its produce continues to grow through the 1950s as the demographics in the neighbourhood changed. From the 1970s, however, customers began to opt for the more convenient supermarkets cropping up around the city. Vendors struggled to keep up with the decline in demand, and in 1986 lets their 20-year cooperative lease lapse.
In the mid-1990s the City attempted to revitalise some of the market activity by consolidating the remaining vendors in the the building at 120 Essex Street.
With the opening of the new Essex Crossing development, the market moved across the road to the ground floor of 88 Essex Street. This modern, expanded space is designed to enable more vendors and restauranteurs to take…
