The Fulton Fish Market Part VI

More images of the Fulton Fish Market can be found in the archives.

Posted by Martin Fuchs at 07:28 PM | Comments (2)

The Fulton Fish Market - An experience Part V

I went back to the Fulton Fish Market last night. My alarm clock should have rung at 01:30am but sirens of the fire deparment woke me up 15 minutes early. While still half asleep I had the feeling that there must have been at least 10 to 15 fire engines driving past. I got up and looked out of the window but there were only two of them heading somewhere in Co-Op City. The streets were totally empty. I didn't see a single car driving out there. I had kind of a strange feeling and just wanted to get back into my bed and sleep.
Since it's hard to take good pictures while asleep I put my cloths on and left the apartment. I already slept for over 13 hours the night before although I wanted to go to the Fulton Fish Market. Simply didn't hear the alarm clock. So no more excuses.
It took me about 1 hour and 45 minutes to get to the bottom of Manhattan. I got of the train at the Brooklyn Bridge / City Hall station and had the smell of fish in my nose right away. I guess this must have been my imagination, nothing else.

The closer I got to the Market, which is located on the East River between South Street Seaport and the Brooklyn Bridgel, the clearer got the smell of fish in the air. I actually like this smell. Obviously not after going back home, realizing that not only my cloths but also my camera strap smells like fish but while being around the market it's perfectly alright with me.

I started to walk around the market, hanging out on this corner, hanging out on that corner. I met Ziggy again, a Puerto Rican fishmonger, with whom I talked already the last time I got there. While walking around I came across Annie. Annie is a over 80 years old woman who comes to the Fulton Fish Market each night for over 50 years already. She is pushing a shopping cart in front of her in which she has cigarettes and newspapers to sell. That's the way she earns her living. She get's the cigarettes from China Town and sells them rather cheap to the people at the market. And she delivers the New York Post, which usually costs 25 Cents to a lot of the fishmongers. They pay her 1 dollar for the paper. She has a certain way to go through the market to make sure everyone get's what they need. I joined Annie and walked around with her. She is a really crazy, funny and lovely woman, joking and shouting around whenever a situation arises. And believe me, that's all the time.

She knows everyone at the market and everyone knows here. I'd say that about 70 percent of the people there (she is more or less the only woman at the market by the way) are her "boyfriends". She loves every "fuckin bastard" as she tells me and she introduced me to some of those guys.
First I met Angelo whom you can see in the photographs above. Angelo is a Portuguese man who came to New York over 20 years ago. He basically started to work at the Fulton Fish Market right after he arrived. I stopped and talked a little bit to him. Since I've been to Portugal quite a couple of times and lost my heart to this country we had something in common and to talk about. The best Portuguese restaurants can't be found in New York City by the way but in Jersey City right across the Hudson River.
I met an Italian fishmonger named Eddy and a guy called Richard who became a Skinhead in 1989 and works as a forklift driver at the market. He has some very clear cut tattoos on his arms as I could see. Richard loves Annie as he told me while hugging her although she is jewish. And he likes reggae music.

I hope to be able to get a little deeper into the Fulton Fish Market and it's people with the little time which is left before the market moves to it's new location in the Bronx. I am planning of going back there twice a week from now on. Will try and see if I can take a day off from work every week.

More Fulton Fish Market in the archives.

Posted by Martin Fuchs at 11:59 PM | Comments (3)

Fulton Fish Market Part IV

More images from my last nights trip to the Fulton Fish Market tomorrow. It was again a very interesting visit... Older images of the Fulton Fish Market can be found in the archive.

Posted by Martin Fuchs at 11:09 PM | Comments (3)

Fulton Fish Market Part III

These are two more pictures of my night at the Fulton Fish Market a week and a half ago. I actually wanted to go to the market again this night but since I had to work long this evening and there is a lot of work waiting for me at Magnum in the next two days I had to postpone this night... :-(
The first part of the Fulton Fish Market series can be found here and the second part here.

Posted by Martin Fuchs at 10:02 PM | Comments (3)

Tasty and fresh - Fulton Fish Market Part II

Two more shots from my night at the Fulton Fish Market. See others and some information on the market in the previous post.

Posted by Martin Fuchs at 11:36 PM | Comments (4)

Tasty and fresh - Fulton Fish Market Part I

I visited the Fulton Fish Market for the first time in June 2004 and now for the second time yesterday night. I like the atmosphere of fish markets so much, I like the smell (yes I do - as long as I can get rid of it later) and most of all I find the people who are working there so interesting. The way you can see how hard work over a lot of years left tracks in peoples faces, the way you get to hear shouts, laughs and sometimes offensice comments from one salesman to the other. It's interesting to see how trading is going on.

The Fulton Fish Market was opend on February 5th in 1822. Its final weeks broach in its 184th year of existance. The Fish Market on Fulton street, very close to the Brooklyn Bridge is to be moved to a new location at the Hunts Point Market in the Bronx. The move there was first scheduled for January, was then displaced to June and will now take place in September as Ziggy Galarza, a salesman at one of the many fish companies told me.

Even tough the Fulton Fish Market is most likely the oldest place in New York that's still doing the same thing as in its beginning, its told to be Americas largest Fish Market. More than 4.5 million pounds of fish moves through it each week.

Since I thought that the Fulton Fish Market would close in June I wanted to take the chance and go there one more time. So I left my apartment in the north east of the Bronx at about 01:30 in the morning, took the bus to Pelham Bay Park, went to 125th street where Markus Hartel, a German photographer living in New York, picked me up to go there. I had a good night at the market and since I heard that it will remain there until September I'll definitely come back.

I got the morning off work today to be able to go back to my partment, take a shower and change cloths. The cloths smell awfull, I had the smell of fish in my nose for quite a few hours although it must have been imagination... But what I can say for sure (its been affirmed by a colleague) is that my camera body still has a touch of fish on it.

Posted by Martin Fuchs at 11:23 PM | Comments (6)