Essex Crossing's Subterranean Market Line to Close on April 1st After Biggest Vendor Exits
If you haven't heard of this one you either live under a rock or you trust me too much with your local news.
Anyway, yes, the Market Line is closing and like the fall of USSR, it made sense but no one saw it coming.
The Grand Delancey, the subterranean beer hall and largest vendor of the Market Line, announced on February 6th its imminent departure from the once celebrated food hall. February 18th, this Sunday, will be their last day of operation.
Too close to be a coincidence, the Market Line's closure was announced three days later by the real estate group managing Essex Crossing, citing pandemic difficulties. Doors close to the Market Line on April 1st.
This does not affect Essex Market, which is the food market on the ground floor.
The ambitious food hall project was meant to serve as an example of how a big developer's ambitions and neighborhood inclusion are not necessarily mutually exclusive. The Market Line, throughout its short five years, was host to a variety of local, sometimes historic businesses including The Pickle Guys, Veselka, Nom Wah, and Essex Pearl. Café Grumpy and Pho Grand opened outposts here while the Tenement Museum installed a small exhibitions urging visitors to climb up and see the real thing. It hosts thrift sellers and had Yu and Me Books take over an empty stall as they recovered from a devastating fire at their original location (now reopened, a full 4 months ahead of schedule!).
However, the food hall's economic woes were apparent. Everyone could see that. It never felt like vendors were there for long, and those that stuck around never had the kind of activity surrounding them that characterize many downtown Manhattan businesses. As many have pointed out, hours were strange, with many stalls closing early.
I saw another neighbor make a good point. Food 'markets' are supposed to be cheaper than your typical brick and mortar restaurant due to the shared cost of maintenance and small footprint. As we all know, however, prices were higher than most.
“New Yorkers love to shop on the street. We don’t want to see malls. You don’t want to feel like you’re in a basement…” - Rohan Mehra of Delancey Street Associates
Ah and one more thing…this was a mall. Despite what the developers promised it would be and their awareness of the problem (see quote above, the Market Line is nothing more than a nicely furnished and decorated mall food court. A Chelsea Market 2.0 if you will, an idea conceived in the early 2010s, when compact and polished urban food halls were all the rage.
The Market Line was meant to be the first of three underground retail/food hall clusters as part of the $1.9 billion Essex Crossing development, which at its best would have tunnels connecting it to the other two buildings east on Delancey.