Sarah Maine, a manager at Saxelby Cheesemongers at the Essex Street Market, smiles at a customer while selling the artisan cheese the shop is known for. The small stall is crowded with exotic cheeses made by East Coast farmers. There is brick cheese called Barick Obama, inspired by president Barack Obama and made by farmers in Vermont and the creamy cheese called 1841 Havarti made in Pennsylvania.

The cheese shop is hanging on even while the neighborhood of the Lower East Side gentrifies and the store faces competition from fancy and expensive supermarkets like the new Union Market that recently opened on Houston Street.

Its future and that of the other vendors in the Essex Street Market is at risk due to the Seward Park Urban Renewal Area plan.

SPURA is a neighborhood development plan that includes the destruction of the Essex Street Market’s building, which has been there for over 70 years. The market will then be built across the street in the less busy area between Delancey and Broome Street. Although, most vendors are opposed to it moving, Sarah Maine is one of the few who approve of the new building. Maine says, “I love the history of the market and I think that should definitely be preserved, the building itself has issues and some of them aren’t great for the stores. A lot of the people don’t even know the market is here because there are no windows. There are things like that where I think a new building would be beneficial.”  

However, other vendors in the market disagree. Many feel that a new market with a condominium on top of it will just contribute to the gentrification in the neighborhood, which is slowly but surely pushing residents out of the Lower East Side. Currently, the plans for the market have been approved by the community board but vendors and residents can still act as the city has not announced any official plans. 

 

Carmen Velez is one of these residents who is involved in the petition to stop the market from moving and is also a vendor in the Essex Street Market, who has worked for the Girl’s Club shop “La Tiendita” for a few years. Velez feels that the market has a lot of historical value. She says, “People come from all over the world to see this market. Yet, this is happening.” 

Velez is not the only one as many of the 22 vendors housed in the market feel that its destruction would be incomprehensible. One of these vendors is Rhonda Kave, famous owner of Roni-Sue Chocolates. Kave has been in the Essex Street Market since 2007 and is sad and outraged to see it go. She says, “It’s a shame. I mean they are promising us a lot of things in the new place but you lose the authenticity.” Yet, for others in the Essex Street Market those promises are seen as a benefit, even if the destruction of the historical building is the price to pay.

Meanwhile, Community Board 3, which includes the Lower East Side, the East Village and Chinatown, strives to convince the residents that this will actually improve the neighborhood and preserve its diversity. In their community meeting notes available at nyc.gov they detail what would happen in four possible scenarios. Three of these are, 1) If the market is kept and another one is built down the street they would get no guaranteed funding from the city to maintain the market. 2) If they renovate the existing market and built a condominium on top of it the vendors would have to move somewhere else until everything is done and the space would decrease, which would mean less vendors. In the final scenario, the market would be replaced by a new structure and the new market would accommodate more vendors and “create entrepreneurship opportunities for additional vendors.”

Vendors like Carmen Velez prefer the second option because at least the building would be preserved even if a new structure was built on top of it. However, she says the Community Board refuses to address this option.  Velez says, “The first step is putting it on the agenda and the Community Board refuses to even do that. They don’t want the process to slow down.”

Until this day the vendors in the market are signing petitions and doing what they can at community meetings to save the community from the spreading gentrification, which in this case affects the historical Essex Street Market.  The community board continues to fight back with the benefits for the community and the vendors.  

Rhonda Kave accepts there could be benefits. Some other things that they are promising for the new market is air conditioning, more space and private doors for shops that want to stay open after the market closes at night. Yet, Kave, an American herself, still accuses Americans of having a destruction mentality. She says, “Europeans have more respect for history. If they destroy something they make sure that they built it exactly how it was and actually preserve it. Americans only say, “Let’s destroy it and built something new.”