New York, NY —
There's the sizzling sausage, the grilled corn on the cob, the vendors selling soaps and tube socks -- just a few of the hallmarks of the summer street fairs that close down some of the city's avenues on the weekends. Over 300 fairs have permits for this summer, but critics say if you've been to one you've been to them all.
WNYC's Richard Hake spoke with Jonathon Bowles, Director of the Center for an Urban Future, the left-leaning think tank that has been studying street fairs since 2006. Bowles discusses his latest recommendations for ways to spice up the summer street fairs.
The Center for an Urban Future found a small number of vendors hold a large number of the permits for street fairs. In fact, just three large production companies organize more than 200 of the fairs. Would you say the result is a sort of cookie cutter effect?
It’s true you see the same generic bland vendors at every single fair, no matter if you’re in Greenwich Village or the Upper East Side or in the middle of Queens. It seems like all of these street fairs run together and it’s a real disappointment, because this is a city of unique entrepreneurs and artisans. We should be doing much better.
We spoke to one the vendors, Mort Berkowitz, of Mort and Ray Productions. They do about 14 fairs on the Upper West Side and he defends their approach: “We do work near Columbia University from 110th Street to 116th Street. And we have different vendors there than I would have down further. There, I really look for vendors who have things that can relate to twenty-year-olds.” Is it common for these vendors to kind of customize their approach?
I don’t think that’s really the experience of most New Yorkers. We’ve interviewed a number of New Yorkers for this project and it’s like the same tube sock vendors, fried dough vendors, mozzarepa. You see them at every single street fair it seems, and the data that we’ve gotten suggests that 20 vendors by themselves have almost half of all the permits to sell food at street fairs. I do think there are some unique street fairs that really stand out, and maybe some of them are run by Mort, but I think by and large the experience of New Yorkers is that these things are one and the same and they’re not diverse, they’re not unique and they should be changed.
Your latest report cites Atlantic Antic in Brooklyn, a yearly fair that's rather successful, run by Karen Auster. So we asked her why it’s successful and she say they learn from their mistakes: “One year, Charlie Sahadi, the owner of Sahadi imports, came to me and said that the date was during Ramadan and it’s disrespectful. Some of us weren’t even aware the date was during that holiday and that feedback drove us the following year to make sure to steer clear of Ramadan. Now, we are very sensitive to ethnic groups and religions because of that feedback.” So engaging the local ethnic communities, is that an issue?
That’s one of the best things that you could do. Right now, the fairs really lack that local flavor, and neighborhoods are so distinct in the city. What the Atlantic Antic is doing by reaching out to community members and local vendors and entrepreneurs -- that’s what should be emulated across the city, because we want to get those businesses like Sahadi's involved. That’s what’s going to pull New Yorkers there. That’s what’s going to make these fairs interesting.
Tell us about some of the interesting recommendations from your report.
We polled all sorts of innovative New Yorkers, including people that run some very successful street markets in New York, like Chelsea Market, the Union Square Holiday Market, the New York City green markets -- New Yorkers seem to love those markets and I think we wanted to find out what can we take from those. One of the ideas that we got was that maybe the organizers of these fairs could charge lower fees for vendors that are from the neighborhood or at least from New York City -- to change the pricing or incentive structure.
Also, a lot of unique artistans and entrepreneurs that are based in New York face a lot of obstacles getting into these street fairs -- they don’t know how to apply, or they're not sure if they can scale up and do the street fair, and so I think the city or some of the chambers of commerce or local business organizations could really help New York's unique entrepreneurs to get engaged in these street fairs.