FFLA representatives met with the owners of the Brooklyn Flea recently, and we discussed potential quality-of-life issues to ensure that Fulton Ferry residents will only have a positive experience with the new Sunday enterprise under the Brooklyn Bridge. Among the topics discussed were garbage cleanup, air and noise pollution, and traffic.
The Flea will employ 4 members from the Doe Fund to sweep the blacktop area and the immediate perimeter, so we should not see the kind of mess that sometimes occurred last summer after Tobacco Warehouse events. They do not anticipate any food trucks as part of the plan, so we should be clear of noise and air polluting generators. However, NYC licensed vendors may try to stake a claim to sidewalk space, which we will have to look out for. There are rules as to the distance from a residential entry and the width of the sidewalk. Many of you will remember the fruit shake lady who set up in front of the Eagle last year with a polluting generator, until she was ultimately convinced to leave. Ditto for the hotdog guy at the corner of Furman and Old Fulton. Montague Street is a vendor-free zone, and we need to have this historic area declared such as well.
Vendors will start to unload their wares for set-up at 8AM, so we asked that they try to do that task away from the residential part of Water Street. We also requested that the vendors approach the market via Dock Street or Water Street westbound, rather than making the turn from Old Fulton at Pete’s and facing the prospect of a forced U-turn. This should aid in the prevention of a bottleneck there.
In light of the above points, we anticipate good relations between this business and the residential neighbors. And rumor has it that there may be Lobster rolls for sale inside the Flea, direct from Maine. You can’t beat that on a summer’s day!
In a related story, the planned ice skating rink for this site is still years away, because the DOT will be using the part of the land closest to the water as a staging and storage area for the upcoming Bridge repainting project.
