A New Greenmarket Opens Near WTC, Slowly at First

Greenmarket vendor Chimi Lhantso helps a customer at her Meredith's Bread tent. Photo: Amanda Woods/Tribeca Trib

On Tuesday afternoon, vendors sold their pastries, juices, breads and more from two Greenmarket tents on Greenwich Street at Albany, outside the former queuing area for visitors to the September 11 Memorial. This was the second day of the weekly Greenmarket and the two sellers said they’ve been off to a slow start.

At one of the tents, Meredith’s Bread, a few shoppers tested a variety of fruit jams, from blackberry to sour cherry to raspberry, spreading them on small bread samples. But vendor Chimi Lhantso, who was covering for her mother, Pasang Nepali, that afternoon, said that fewer than a dozen shoppers per hour stopped by her stand. Business was better, she said, at the market’s previous location on West Broadway between Barclay Street and Park Place, which had to be relocated because of construction.

“[My mother] said that she prefers the other market because there’s a lot of office people in the morning and she has a rush in the morning,” Lhantso said. “Over here is not a lot of people. This is kind of dead.”

Nepali, who returned in time to close the business for the day, said she has been operating Greenmarkets in the vicinity of the World Trade Center site for five or six years. She added that she would like to see the market return to Zuccotti Park, her favorite location.

“There’s more business and it’s comfortable for the summer,” she said. “It’s nice.”

At the neighboring tent, Red Jacket, fruits-and-juice vendor Lobsang Tsten was already packing up at 4 p.m., an hour early. No shoppers were stopping by his tent at the time, and he said business had been “bad” all day.

“Around the hotel, there are a lot of children,” Tsten said, referring to the nearby W Hotel on Washington Street between Albany and Carlisle. “They don’t consume fruits.”  He said he would prefer to be in a more residential area.

Michael Hurwitz, the director of Greenmarkets for GrowNYC, the organization that operates the market, said he believes business is slow because the market has just settled in.

“Any time a market launches or relocate it takes time to build business, so I attribute this mostly to the newness,” Hurwitz wrote in an email. “West Broadway had more foot traffic and less construction, though we saw challenges in that location as well.”

Nevertheless, shoppers at Meredith’s Bread said they were pleased with the market and its location.

“Below Albany Street is kind our forgotten little [section of] Greenwich Street,” said Sharon Hyland, who lives across the street and bought a granola bar to bring with her on a flight. “It’s a little homey ‘neighborhoody’ place to pick up something baked.”

“It’s terrific,” added John Russo, who works at the World Financial Center across nearby West Street. “I wish it was here more than once a week.”

Cathy Chambers, a staffer with the Greenmarket program, told Community Board 1 in July that three sellers were expected to occupy the wide sidewalk, and that six more would be added in time. But the third farmer, according to Hurwitz, opted out of the market because of “staffing challenges.”

“We will continue to actively recruit additional farmers,” he said.

Chambers and Taina Prado, the director of government and community relations at the Downtown Alliance, also told CB1 that they would like to see the market successful enough to expand beyond the sidewalk into the former queuing area––a 7,000-square-foot lot that the Alliance has just transformed into a pedestrian plaza and spruced up with tables, chairs, and a half-dozen trees.

It will take time to make that decision, Hurwitz said, noting that the space has “the potential to host incredible community programming for residents, individuals that work in the area and for tourists visiting Lower Manhattan.”

“It could take weeks, if not months, to determine what type of Greenmarket will work in the space,” Hurwitz said. “Clearly there are substantial challenges but everyone is working to make this a success despite them.”