Where did New Yorkers buy their groceries during the centuries before supermarkets?

Today it’s so easy to stock up on provisions. You just head to your local supermarket, grocery store or bodega, grab what you need, then pay and go. Even easier: tap the items you need on your phone and they’ll be delivered right to your door! You don’t even need to change out of your pajamas.

But for its first 300 years, New York (and the rest of America) had no supermarkets. There were some tiny neighborhood shops stocking a limited amount of preserved and imported foodstuffs. You had to keep your hands off the merchandise; the grocer would collect your requested items and wrap them up or you. In the poorer neighborhoods “groceries” were nothing more than “grog shops,” or glorified liquor stores. To fully supply your larder would require multiple visits to many specialty stores: the bakery, the butcher shop, the dairy store, the fishmonger, the poulterer, and the produce stand. Food shopping could take most of your (or your servant’s) day! 

That is, unless you had the time and tenacity to visit one of the city’s huge indoor/outdoor public markets, where everything was available in one place! There were over a dozen of these gigantic, multi-acre emporiums in southern Manhattan and Brooklyn. Costco does not even compare! The public markets were packed with meat, fish, dairy and produce vendors housed within a shambling row of garages, as well as a field full of jostling outdoor pushcarts overflowing with comestables. Loud, filthy and overcrowded, these markets nonetheless served chefs, hoteliers, boarding house owners and brave housewives who wanted the freshest, most convenient foodstuffs. By the 1700s, all New Yorkers shopped at these public markets, and would continue to do so well into the 20th century.

“Farm-to-table” cuisine is not as new as you think. The old public markets offered even fresher ingredients, from the local fields and pastures of Manhattan, and the surrounding farms of Long Island, New Jersey, Westchester and Connecticut. Before refrigeration, fish, meat, and most dairy had to be sold and eaten the same day it was caught, butchered or bottled. It was maximum 12 hours from harvest to consumption...now that’s what I call farm-to-table!

In the 19th century, when the Erie Canal opened and railroads were established, livestock and produce were raced into the city even faster, at a much lower cost (shipping midwest wheat once cost $100 a bushel; after the Erie Canal opened the price dropped to $6 a bushel.) It was in New York City where the incoming wheat was milled, sugar refined, animals butchered, coffee beans roasted, beer brewed, and countless other foodstuffs prepared for selling to the surrounding populace and around the world. New York became known as “The Empire of Gastronomy,” the culinary capital of America.

And what a selection those public markets had! Farmers of the past grew a much wider range of vegetables and fruits, including many varieties unavailable today. Hunters brought to market an amazing menagerie of local game: canvasback ducks from Pennsylvania, venison from Long Island, snipe, plover and woodcock from New Jersey, and a cornucopia of local possums, turkeys, eagles, hares, owls, wildcats, deer and bears. The unspoiled waters surrounding the city were teeming with 200 species of fresh fish, such as bass, sturgeon, perch, trout, pike, cod, dolphins, sharks...and half of all the oysters on the planet! International steamships docking at riverside markets would unload Sicilian oranges, Spanish lemons, Bahamian pineapples and Cuban bananas, making New York the preeminent tropical fruit market in the world. There was livestock to be had as well: chickens for eating or laying, and pigs for raising (many ethnic enclaves raised poultry and pigs in their basements and minuscule “yards.”)

As you can imagine, the convenience and popularity of the public markets produced a sordid concurrence of gridlock, crowds, stench and graft. Pushcarts clogged the surrounding streets, ships jostled to find a vacant berth, and loud swarms of cattle were herded through the city streets day and night. Little or no market regulations gave birth to “forestallers” and “hucksters,” who would race to intercept incoming shipments and buy them out before they reached the markets, reselling the goods at a profit. For the best selection and cost you had to arrive at a market by sunrise, before quality dropped and prices rose.

One might imagine that these public markets were akin to today’s Greenmarkets, like the big one in Union Square. One would be mistaken. The quiet, park-like setting of the Union Square Market, where strolling shoppers enjoy a pleasant outing, is quite the opposite of the deafening, squalid, jam-packed free-for-all of the old public markets, sellers and purchasers haggling at the top of their lungs in the malodorous ambiance. 

So, are you ready to go shopping?

Here’s an 1840 map with my overlay showing the locations of the major public markets in Manhattan. Some of them lasted into the 20th century. We’ll take a tour of the major ones, so grab your shopping list and get ready for some wild grocery action!

Food shopping in New York City began in the early 1600s, when the town was the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam. Native Americans brought corn, game, fish and other items from nearby pastures and waterways to sell at a place known as “Market Field”, next to the fort at the southern tip of the island. The colony licensed 12 butchers (including Asser Levy, the town’s first Jewish settler) to sell meat there. The area was soon known as “The Shambles,” and was replaced in 1699 with the first real indoor public market:

Fly Market 

Situated in a salt water marsh along the East River, its original name was actually Vlie (Dutch for meadow.) Established in 1699, its basic operation and layout was copied by all subsequent public markets: it was built and paid for by the local citizenry, the center aisle was reserved for butchers’ stalls (recognizing their official licensing), and country produce vendors rented spaces around the edges on a first-come, first-serve basis. Hucksters surrounded the streets outside, selling cheap goods from carts and baskets. As the city grew, the Fly Market expanded to three buildings: one each for meat, fish and produce.

The Fly was conveniently located right near the ferry dock, facilitating easy access for farmers and fisherman to unload their goods, and attracting commuters from Brooklyn who purchased foodstuffs to and from work. The 120-year-old wooden buildings eventually became decrepit, a fate suffered by most of the original markets. The Fly Market was demolished in 1816, to make way for a new market (which is still in business today!):

Fulton Market

Opened in 1822, Fulton upped the public market game by a mile. Its grand, elegant, quadrangular structure featured 88 butcher stands and 34 fruit merchants. In the beginning, only a small corner of the market featured seafood dealers, until the fishmongers moved across South Street to their own tin shed along the river in 1831. This was replaced by a permanent building in 1869. As the meat and produce vendors in the original building moved to the west side markets, the fishmongers took over that space, as well as many neighboring buildings. This expanded Fulton Fish Market became the biggest in the country and one of the largest in the world.

Fish sellers discovered that customers would love to slurp some oysters right off the boat, and they cashed in. Stands like Dorlon’s in the Fulton Market fed thousands of hurrying ferry riders. Wealthy men and society ladies in their finery lined up to slurp shellfish amidst the shabby surroundings.

By the mid-20th century, Fulton was one of the last working areas of the waterfront in Manhattan, and the last vestige of the public markets. It remained busy from midnight until 9 a.m., the surrounding streets choked with refrigerator trucks from all over the continent. The city tried for decades to move the market in an attempt to quell the organized crime which had infiltrated. Finally, in 2005 a 400,000 square foot fully refrigerated indoor facility was built at the Hunts Point Food Distribution Center in the Bronx, and the storied Fulton Fish Market has resided there ever since. The iconic “Tin Building,” re-constructed at its original location near the Brooklyn Bridge, now houses a glamorous, upscale boutique “market” run by New York superchef Jean-Georges Vongerichten.

Catherine Market

Another fish-based emporium built in 1786 near the East River, this market was not only notable for its oysters, but also its entertainment. Freed and enslaved African Americans made major contributions to both, harvesting and selling bivalves to hungry shoppers until they sold out their catch, then participating in raucous contests known as “Dancing for Eels.” Black competitors from around the northeast performed amazing, kinetic dances while their friends tapped out beats, leading some scholars to declare that this practice was the origin of tap dancing. Enjoyed by huge crowds, winners received coins or eels as prizes.

Demolished in 1903, today the cleared area is a bucolic public park known as Catherine Mall Market. An informative sign explaining its history was researched and composed by the eighth-grade students of PS126 on Catherine Street.

Washington Market

Some readers may remember this sprawling market, established in 1815 and lasting until the 1960s. Built like an atrium with an open center for produce vendors, it took up a whole city block. In its first 7 years sales grew 1,000 percent. By the 1850s it was the city’s largest market, overflowing with over 2,000 produce wagons and sales totaling $28 million annually. Spreading to several city blocks and adding massive western and northern annexes, Washington Market became the biggest in the country, a “city within a city,” taking up a large portion of Manhattan’s Lower West Side.

On of the most popular sections was the “Buttermilk Market,” supplied by New Jersey dairy farmers, offering fresh milk, cream, butter and cheese daily. A spectacular tradition was started by Catskill farmer Mark Carr, who rented a stand for one dollar to sell the first available Christmas trees in the city. He sold out immediately. New Yorkers still get their holiday trees from local markets.

The New York Mercury swooned in 1856, “Washington Market represents a lap of luxury, the glory of a bountifully supplied and plenteous land.” It also created huge traffic jams, went entirely unregulated, and was rife with corruption. Although rebuilt several times during its 150-year existence, it was demolished in 1967, replaced by the Hunts Point Market in the Bronx. In its place is lovely Washington Market Park, complete with gazebo and stunning skyscraper views.

Jefferson Market

Public markets were not recognized for their physical beauty, but Greenwich Village’s Jefferson Market might be the exception. Located at the intersection of West 10th Street and 6th Avenue, it began life as a meat and produce market in 1833, and included a tall wooden fire watchtower with a 9,000-pound alarm bell.

Razed in 1873, it was replaced by a brick courthouse, firehouse, jail and a new market, all designed by Frederick Clarke Withers and Calvert Vaux (of Central Park fame.) The Victorian Gothic buildings, complete with pinnacles and gables, featured a new 172-foot brick firewatch tower, with clock, bell, and balustraded parapet for use by ever-vigilant fire spotters (still there!)

By 1929, the jail had become the notorious Women’s House of Detention. The triangle of buildings became vacant in the 1940s, and were scheduled to be sold at auction. Although New York City lacked preservation laws at that time, community groups convinced Mayor Wagner to turn the courthouse into a public library in 1967, and replace the House of Detention with a beautiful garden in 1973. Declared one of the ten most beautiful buildings in the United States, it is now a National Historic Landmark.

Hunts Point Market

You’ve probably never seen this modern-day version of a public market, tucked into the southern Bronx. But the “Hunts Point Food Distribution Center” is the largest market in the world, maintaining Gotham’s notoriety as “The Empire of Gastronomy.” It’s made up of three separate marketplaces: the NYC Terminal Produce Cooperative Market, distributing 3 billion pounds of produce to supermarkets and restaurants, the Hunts Point Cooperative Market, containing 1 million square feet of meat sellers, and the relocated Fulton Fish Market, doing an astounding $1 billion in annual sales. More than 2,500 people work in the massive complex of businesses, distributors and processors. It’s truly an international concern, with comestibles flown in from across the continent and more than 50 countries. You can actually visit this amazing place for a $5 entry fee.