As a board member of the Sylvia Center, I was a little startled and a tad apprehensive when I ended up being the winning bidder at the gala’s live auction for one of the items: A Personalized Tour of the Fulton Fish Market for You and Fifteen Friends at 4 AM. Wait, I just won that? I have to get up in the middle of the night? Do I even have five friends who want to join me, let alone fifteen?
As it turns out, I was immediately oversubscribed by friends, family and colleagues who wanted an insider peak at this iconic New York institution. We all had similar curiosity, what goes on in the middle of the night to help make this City function while we’re all in bed?
The answer is, a lot. We arrived in Hunts Point at 4 am, which is prime time for the fish market. The market hours are 2 am-7 am, although deliveries start unloading at 10 pm. The amount of truck traffic is intense between the fish market and the nearby produce market. At the fish market alone, 1,400-1,600 trucks arrive daily, representing both buyers and sellers.
The market sells 5 million pounds of fish each week within a 400,000 square foot, fully refrigerated building. We walked around, with some of us wishing we had brought a jacket, others regretting wearing white tennis shoes.
We strolled the aisles, looking at every conceivable fish for sale. There are 23 vendors at the market, who are both competitors, as well as collaborators who govern together to run the fish market cooperative. Walking around, one thing we immediately noticed is that there were no prices! We learned that most transactions take place in cash, and prices are rarely posted. Depending upon what your neighbor is charging and how appealing the catch of the day is, prices are truly dynamic.
The fish looked delicious. Apparently, most of the fish had come out of the water within the past 24-48 hours, so it was all incredibly fresh.
The fish folks all seemed to be total characters. Most of the companies are family-owned 4th and 5th generation companies. And it was bustling; 1,400 people work in the fish market.
Lisa from the Fulton Fish Market Cooperative shared with us a few different initiatives they’re planning, some to increase tourism to the Market. She said, imagine people take a ferry to market, have the tour, and we end with a sashimi breakfast.
At the end of the tour, we got the swag bag, which included a huge piece of salmon packed in ice. It was fresh salmon from the Faroe Islands. My son had a small piece, sashimi style, for breakfast a few hours later, but most of us cooked the salmon in the next day or so. The salmon was amazing, as was the insider NYC experience.
