Entrance at Dekalb Market, Downtown Brooklyn
Salvaged and stacked up colorful shipping containers make walls, shops and a small semi open urban market in downtown Brooklyn. It’s a great and beautiful concept to promote small entrepreneurs in a small cultural community setting using 20 foot shipping containers with electricity, water, stove tops and even AC installation.
It was our first time visiting and it was late afternoon on Saturday. It felt bit empty but I see a great potential. But then, would this really work? It’s located by Flatbush Avenue near the Dekalb avenue where now all these luxury high-rise condos are getting built. There are good amount of commercial and office spaces around the market, so Lunch time, it may get bit crowded but not sure how much foot traffic this market gets in general. Despite it’s charming vibe, the market is not so substantial enough to go for either food or shopping. I see coffee, donuts, sandwiches, tacos. All those usual suspects. Then there are these small shops. The containers are great looking. Thy are itsy bitsy super cute but are they too small? Most of food vendors occupy the full spaced containers then there are many other containers divided in half, and that’s when it gets bit too small for me. Once there 2 people in, there’s no more room for any other. It’s a great concept but I see much room to be improved.
The market needs better P.R and more vendors in general for customers to feel it’s worth the trip. There should be a lot more food vendors to bring greater foot traffic daily then need bigger space occupying non food vendors like vintage, books, magazine stands, Arts, maybe even flower shops, graphic tees and so on to sustain as a daily market. It totally got this cool vibe going but it feels like the whole thing is a bit of temporary set up. Kind of one night stand like. There were concerts, DJ gig and even a night Bazar. They all sound great and heard it was successful but it is missing this Core strength to sustain this market to be not just a cool gig but as a real community’s daily market. Hope for a good boost for Christmas shopping time and wish for better improvement with stronger vendors and entrepreneurs bringing more fresh creative product to the market.
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