Thirteenth Avenue Retail Market

[Thirteenth Avenue Retail Market, 3910 13th Avenue, Boro Park, Brooklyn, c. 1939–1941. As seen from 40th Street and 39th Street. From the NYC Municipal Archives Collections. Click either image for a much larger view.]

The Thirteenth Avenue Retail Market (WIndsor 8-8788) was one of seven New York City markets built in the interest of sanitation, removing pushcarts from the streets and placing them indoors, with the benefits of air conditioning, screening, and hot and cold running water. Two photographs dated 1939 — 1, 2 — show Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia in the Thirteenth Avenue Market. I think the following paragraph clinches it: the market must have opened in the second half of 1939:

[“Food Distribution on Wartime Basis Is Mapped by City.” The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, July 28, 1941.]

But years later, pushcarts were still a problem. The Brooklyn Daily Eagle (May 20, 1952) has an article titled “Pushcart Solution: More City Markets.” A photograph of life inside the Thirteenth Avenue market accompanied the article. The caption:

THE SANITARY WAY — The 13th Avenue Retail Market, pictured here, replaced a neighborhood pushcart market and brought the peddlers inside. Here the food is kept free from dust, dirt and flies. Moreover, the enclosed market is easier both to clean and keep clean than the street.

You can see a non-murky version of the still-under-copyright photograph that went with the caption via the Brooklyn Public Library.

And here are two photographs of the market as seen from Thirteenth Avenue:

[Thirteenth Avenue Retail Market, 1951. Photograph by Walter Albertin, New York World-Telegram & Sun. From the Library of Congress.]

[Thirteenth Avenue Retail Market, 1965. Photograph by Phyllis Twachtman, New York World-Telegram & Sun. From the Library of Congress.]

I have dim memories of the Thirteenth Avenue Retail Market, always known as “the market.” It was relatively dim inside, and noisy. Produce was available, of course. I think there were cheap toys for sale, but that might be wishful thinking. My most vivid memory of the market: the red letters announcing its name.

When I was a boy in Brooklyn in the 1960s, there was at least one pushcart still at work on Thirteenth Avenue, on the wide sidewalk at the southeast corner of 39th Street. That spot belonged to Whitey the banana man. Yes, a guy who sold nothing but bananas. They were displayed on a pushcart with plastic grass covering the shelves. And that of course is where we bought our bananas. If I had been older, say, Holden Caulfield’s age, I would have wondered where Whitey went in the winter.

The Thirteenth Avenue Retail Market still stands — now doing duty as a Kosher supermarket.

Bonus: you can see the Bronx’s Arthur Avenue Retail Market (also still standing) in the opening credits of Marty (dir. Delbert Mann, 1955).

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August 5: At least three newspaper articles document the market’s opening on Tuesday, October 5, 1939. Here’s one from The Brooklyn Daily Eagle. And two articles — 1, 2 — from The New York Times. Details: the building, a WPA project, replaced a pushcart area between 39th and 42nd Streets. The market housed 137 stands, and was designed in the shape of a T, “a monster T.,” according to the Eagle. It had heat and air-conditioning and a basement for storage. Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, quoted in the Eagle: “I think that you people, just the same as those living on 5th Ave. and Park Ave., are entitled to do your buying in stores.”

Related reading
All OCA Boro Park posts (Pinboard) : Kubrick Self Service Stores (Next to the market) : More photographs from the NYC Municipal Archives : Thirteenth Avenue Retail Market, in color (Forgotten NY)