Fish Market Giving Up Its Historic Fulton Street Digs

Practically speaking, it’s easy to see why the Fulton Fish Market is abandoning its historic Lower Manhattan home.

Its gleaming new facility in the Bronx has more space, better access and more sanitary conditions. Not to mention it’s indoors.

“I’ve spent 28 winters freezing my buns off,” said Bill Bartone as he loaded palettes of fish onto a truck at daybreak one morning.

But when the market, which opened in 1822, packs up in early July for its move to Hunts Point, the fishmongers will take a piece of old New York with them.

“The city is losing part of its history and its charm,” said Naima Rauam, an artist whose studio -- “Art in the Afternoon (fish in the morning)” -- is in the market.

Though the scrod and halibut have long been hauled in by trucks rather than ferried by boats, the market in many ways operates as it has for years.

Using hand carts and mini-forklifts dubbed “hi-lows,” about 400 journeymen, stand men and mix men unload dozens of tractor trailers that arrive from as far as Florida and Vancouver. From 10 p.m. to 5 a.m., the men line hundreds of crates along the two-block-long market, only to reload them into smaller trucks headed for restaurants and supermarkets.

The activity is fast. With competing fishmongers racing to sell their products, hi-lows speed to the latest delivery the way stock traders scurry a few blocks away on Wall Street.

“When I describe this I say, ‘It’s the pressure and the game of the New York Stock Exchange and the physical exertion of a construction site,’ ” said Warren Kremin, a third-generation fishmonger who owns Fathers Fish Co.

The fishmongers seem to enjoy themselves. When a handcart tips over, its user exclaims, “holy mackerel.” Another man yells to a passerby, “Eat fish. It’s good for you.”

But the market is also -- to be kind -- decrepit.

In part because a move has been anticipated for years, many basic repairs haven’t been made. Crates of fish are stacked in the street because there’s nowhere else to put them. The only cover for workers from rain is an FDR Drive overpass.

And then there’s the stench.

“I wouldn’t call it a stench,” Rauam said. “I’d call it a perfume.”

Though she’ll be at the new location in the Bronx, Rauam is sorry to see the market go. Neither the city nor the fish dealers ever put enough effort or money into upkeep to make Fulton Street a premier market, she said.

“No one thought about protecting it, nurturing it or making it thrive,” Rauam said. “There’s been a collective neglect over a number of administrations.”

Janel Patterson, a spokeswoman for the city’s Economic Development Corp., said there was no reason for the market to be at the seaport. “It’s a piece of history, but we’ve got to move forward,” she said.

The market has long been an anomaly at the bottom of Manhattan.

Across Fulton Street is the South Street Seaport, where stores such as Ann Taylor and Gap Kids attest to the gentrification of the rest of the area.

Bruce Beck, a local teacher and author of “The Official Fulton Fish Market Cookbook,” said the new market would be more sanitary with better refrigeration. “I hope it brings New York better fish,” he said.

The city doesn’t have a plan for the vacated space. Some of the nearby properties have been redeveloped into high-end retail and residential uses.

Richard Stepler, who handles publications at South Street Seaport, pointed out that the London fish market uprooted itself in the 1970s.

“The rumor is that it still smells,” he said. “So the [Fulton] fish market may move but the odor will linger.”