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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 on September 1, 2005 11:59 PM