Fulton Fish Market: A History [Hardback]

"The Fulton Fish Market started out in 1822 as a general food market like others in the city because it was located in a residential neighborhood. The merchants who operated there began to specialize in fish during the 1850s because there were efficiencies associated with wholesaling one product from a central location. In its heyday during the late-nineteenth century, fishing boats would bring their catch directly to the market's dock and sell them off the boat to the wholesalers with stalls there. Fromshad to salmon, oysters to turtles, everything from the water that people in the New York area wanted to eat came through this market. Despite its many difficulties, the Fulton Fish Market lasted longer than other legendary neighborhood-based business districts because its denizens recognized that in at least one important sense it had to change with the times. As fishing grew in scale and dietary importance, fishmongers learned more about the environmental effects of their business than even fishermen themselves. Even though volume at the market increased over the course of the twentieth century, the Fulton Fish Market and the area that surrounded it became a museum neighborhood, a place to go where people could observe a dying way of life and still getthe freshest fish possible at that time. Gentrification overtook the market, much as it did other parts of Manhattan, not because its operations were inefficient, but because no industry could afford to remain on real estate which had become so valuable,so quickly. The working lives of the people who operated every part of the fish provisioning chain - with the Fulton Fish Market at its center - serve as the basis for explaining larger changes in the city and in society that led to this gradual but important transformation. The book straddles economic history, food history, urban history, environmental history, and the history of immigration. It is very clearly written, and should also reach general readers interested in NYC history"--

This book is a lively and comprehensive history of the Fulton Fish Market, from its founding in 1822 through its move to the Bronx in 2005. Jonathan H. Rees explores the market’s workings and significance, tracing the transportation, retailing, and consumption of fish.

The Fulton Fish Market stands out as an iconic New York institution. At first a neighborhood retail market for many different kinds of food, it became the nation’s largest fish and seafood wholesaling center by the late nineteenth century. Waves of immigrants worked at the Fulton Fish Market and then introduced the rest of the city to their seafood traditions. In popular culture, the market—celebrated by Joseph Mitchell in The New Yorker—conjures up images of the bustling East River waterfront, late-night fishmongering, organized crime, and a vanished working-class New York.

This book is a lively and comprehensive history of the Fulton Fish Market, from its founding in 1822 through its move to the Bronx in 2005. Jonathan H. Rees explores the market’s workings and significance, tracing the transportation, retailing, and consumption of fish. He tells the stories of the people and institutions that depended on the Fulton Fish Market—including fishermen, retail stores, restaurants, and chefs—and shows how the market affected what customers in New York and around the country ate. Rees examines transformations in food provisioning systems through the lens of a vital distribution point, arguing that the market’s wholesale dealers were innovative businessmen who adapted to technological change in a dynamic industry. He also explains how changes in the urban landscape and economy affected the history of the market and the surrounding neighborhood.

Bringing together economic, technological, urban, culinary, and environmental history, this book demonstrates how the Fulton Fish Market shaped American cuisine, commerce, and culture.