Fulton Flea week 2- Sunday Sept 20 at 650 Fulton Street

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This will be week number 2 for the Fulton Flea -- and there will be nearly 15 Vendors mostly from the local or nearby neighborhoods showing off their goods and talents and hoping to engage other residents to partake of their offerings. In order to even get someone to consider a purchase, people need to make their way to this venue and check out the scene! This is a true bottom-up effort with home-based entrepreneurs and local restaurants making the effort to put their wares out for view. A previously empty parking lot is indeed being put to a more active use and Fulton Street is being stretched one more block as an active commercial Main Street. There are great things happening in this lot - and real community is being born and formed. Music is floating in the air and creativity is on exhibit as well as for sale.

Whether people choose to come, though, is a factor of many things . We can simply frame this as "market choices" and whether residents as consumers see value in another local flea market concept. From a social and urban planning perspective, though, there is a curiousity regarding how people choose their daily routines, where they walk, what makes folks "adventure" to new venues, to mix with those who may be perceived as "different" etc. NYC is embracing a "public market" concept in much of its street design - witness the closing of stretches of Broadway and other sections of Manhattan during selected summer weekends and the new pedestrian plazas springing up. This design brings people together and uplifts diversity as a positive stimulating and exciting variable where multiple uses can occur in a shared place.

As we look more locally at Fulton Street, what makes people attracted (or not) to specific sections, destinations and uses? What is required to get someone to cross the street and change their route? How does the ever-changing character of Fort Greene (inclusive of socio-economic dynamics - race, power, class etc. - ) play out in terms of street traffic and commercial success? Where are the venues that promote different people to meet and what supports one's motivation to walk in a new direction? What type of merchandise and at what price point will attract or turn somehow off (too expensive, too cheap). Is this all a sum of completely individual choices or is there a larger sociological and cultural compoinent at play?

Can an empty lot on a side of a street that has not had much active use and which has generally been associated with a medical clinic mostly serving lower income residents of color become a destination of choice for residents of many different backgrounds where economy can be enhanced?

What are the features you would want to see that would make this a destination for you?

For contact info please go to www.fultonflea.com