For a generation that has grown up on the big box standard set by places like Wal-Mart, Sears, and Target, the modern bazaar can seem a little bizarre. Stalls? Haggling? Outdoors, even? It might all seem a bit intimidating, but that didn’t stop several hundred Philadelphians from descending upon the Brooklyn Flea Market at the Piazza in Northern Liberties this Sunday. For anyone looking for a little fresh air and a fresh dynamic between market-goer and stall operator, it was the place to be.
“It’s never a bad experience, and definitely a learning experience,” said Steve Kilmer (above), a vendor who has run a photography stall at the Flea since it began this past June. Among his wares were at least 50 old cameras, film, and other odds and ends having to do with the art of picture taking. There was even an old Polaroid One Step on display, which Kilmer couldn’t help but flash a half smile at when someone mentioned it.
“You know, before everything went to digital, this was really the only way to get an instant picture,” he said, with just a hint of twinkle in his eye.
His comment is a reminder that things have changed at an incredible pace over the past few decades. Besides the advent of the big box business model, there are the relatively new frontiers of amazon.com, ebay.com, and craigslist.com to consider when thinking of how people approach buying and selling in today’s world. Digitalization has permeated nearly every aspect of the modern experience, but the flea market is testament to the fact that, sometimes, the old way works just as well as the new. Kilmer was offering the Polaroid for $20, cheaper than the $25 price tag that film for the camera now carries.
“I would say my prices are pretty comparable to hobby shops or even what you’d find online,” said Kilmer.
A quick search on ebay.com shows that he’s right. Most Polaroid One Step cameras go for around $20, while some models go for even higher at around $50, not including shipping and handling costs.
And cameras are just a small fraction of what’s available at the Flea. There are the things one expects to find at an outdoor flea market: vintage clothes, jewelry, antiques, and the like. And then there are the niche items, like the aforementioned cameras, terrariums contained inside small glass vases, furniture made from old household items, knickknacks like old billiards balls, and more.
“One of the things that I remember most from my day at the Flea was a lamp made out of a vertebrae,” said one market goer, Kaitlin Reilly. “It was weird.”
Another visitor, Courtney Thomas, had her own interesting experience with the market.
“A couple of weeks ago, I went to a Flea Market with my Dad. He bought this huge glass water tank that he seemed so excited about, but it smashed when he tried to move it out of the car. So when I went to the Brooklyn Flea Market, I decided to get him another one,” she said. “I was like, ‘here Dad, take this and think about what a wonderful daughter I am, and not this new nose piercing.’”
Considering that a huge glass tank and a vertebral lamp aren’t exactly the stuff one finds on the shelves of a local Wal-Mart, the diversity of the items available at Brooklyn Flea is something to be celebrated, as well as the vendor-collector to buyer model that succeeds in putting interesting items in consumers’ hands for cheap.
You can check the Flea out every Sunday at the Piazza at Schmidt’s complex in Northern Liberties, rain or shine, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
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