Trueque Project 01 The Book

To reaching the Brooklyn Flea Market begins with transit and exodus. One must straphang on the subway, ride a New York City bus, drive, bicycle, or most analog of all, walk to the outdoor location at 176 Lafayette Avenue in the Brooklyn, New York, neighborhood of Fort Greene. The journey on foot weaves through blocks of the ubiquitous and coveted iconic Brooklyn brownstone homes. Most of these homes were built in the early 1900s, and their close proximity to one another lends the neighborhood a lively and populated air.

The weather is of little consequence, as the Fort Greene Brooklyn Flea Market location remains in session outdoors, rain or shine, until it becomes too cold to stand it, in November. Your walk to the market will include many trees, vibrantly advertising the current season with their leaf colors. The sidewalks of Brooklyn are wide, sometimes cement, but sometimes large slabs of slate from the early days of the neighborhood. Most of the brownstone homes have spindly wrought iron gates in front, whose resonating clinks have persisted through the past century as families, and indeed lives, go about their daily business, grow, die, and ultimately continue so long as the neighborhood exists.

Approaching the market, Bishop Loughlin High School looms first in the sky. A stream of people runs to and from the market like ants to a picnic, during the hours it is open on Saturdays, from 10 am to 5 pm. The schoolyard is surrounded by a tall chain link fence, which some vendors use to display their wares. The market is deliciously and delightfully all outdoors in the schoolyard in Fort Greene - a welcome relief for weary urbanites retreating from a week of small apartments, office cubicles, and crowded subways.

What might be found at the Brooklyn Flea Market?

It's to be expected that vintage clothes and furniture will be for sale every week. Beyond that, handmade objects, antiques, jewelry, books, food, and relics left from the oh-so-recent but ever so far away analog world. It is rare to find anything very closely connected to the current digital era, such as new video games or non-obsolete electronics, though the Brooklyn Flea Market does have its own website. Serious buyers show up with fistfuls of cold hard cash: crisp United States currency.

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