This weekend, my wife and I visited Richmond Hill Flea Market, way way out in Queens. Richmond Hill is also the name of one of the main streets of Bournemouth, the town in Britain that I abandoned. Britain also has a Queen! The coincidences didn’t end there. The place looked uncannily like Bournemouth.
My wife had heard about the market online; she told me it had cheap stuff and sketchy people. We needed to go. Both the stuff and people didn’t disappoint!
Overall, it was a fun day, and we only feared for our lives once.
Here’s what happened:
Getting There
Geographically the market isn’t that far away from where I live, but thanks to the inefficiencies of the New York transit system, it feels like an epic trip.
New York’s public transportation is mostly pointed to midtown Manhattan; this is great if that’s where you’re going, or if you’re not leaving Manhattan, but irritating for trips to any part of the city that wouldn’t naturally involve heading through, or starting off there.
The only way to get to Richmond Hill from where I live is to take multiple forms of transportation that takes an hour, if you’re lucky.
Here’s the trip on a map:
You may be thinking, why am I whining so much? Well, that above trip is 8 miles. 8 miles should be 20-30 minutes tops. The below trip, to Times Square is 13 miles, and takes less time, and involves no transfers:
Ok, transfers and a bit of time are a small price to pay for a cheap flea market, but would it kill the city to invest in bullet trains to anywhere I might want to go? The answer is, probably yes.
Being There:
From its exterior, the flea market looked suitably depressing, as a proper flea market should. It takes place in an old Bingo Hall, that doesn’t appear to have been revamped since I was born.
Here’s the picture that the Richmond Hill Flea Market’s website uses to promote their exterior (please note the poorly Photo-shopped sign and shopping girls, the centre right one appears to be channeling Edvard Munch’s The Scream:
Here’s a closer comparison:
This is my favorite thing of the entire week so far.
My wife also remarked how much this area of Queens looked like Bournemouth. Initially, I disagreed with her, but after a while, yes, I could see it, if you disregard the stuff like the American road signs and wooden building materials (that isn’t sarcasm, it’s literally like the place is Bournemouth with an American lick of paint.)
http://www.levity.com/brooklyn/Queens/richmond.jpg
This street looks particularly Bournemouthy
Inside the Market
Inside, the flea market was a mix of both the awful and incredible, sometimes at once. There were treasures and “treasures,” such as vintage jewelry and cans of bug spray with the lids missing.
Initially, I made my way through the whole thing very quickly. I was mostly looking for books; apart from clothes and food they’re one of the few things I don’t only use digitally. They had very few books on offer except for exercise guides from the 90s. I spotted an X-Files doll that looked incredibly ugly. Why do adults collect toys of TV shows that they like? Never seen the appeal. Especially when they look like this:
Later, I took a slower look at the things, and had much more fun. I spent some time looking at the jewelry. Initially I had written off the merchandise as all being plastic, but on closer inspection, and through talking to stall runners, found out that they actually had some good stuff.
However, by far the most abundant thing on offer was prejudiced views. Being British, a lot of the sellers were interested in talking to me; and several times the conversation was going along quite well, until they mentioned that the problem with Britain nowadays was that there were too many insert token race or religion. Most had either not been to Britain, or hadn’t been since the 70s, so the information they were working off was shaky, at best. Several times this happened, so I resorted to my usual non-confrontational but disagreeing reply of “Yes, well, there are lots of people in Britain, and it’s getting along fine.” That’s right; I’m a social justice warrior.
Going Home
After my wife bought some items, and I gained new insights into how people view my home country, we decided to head home.
We had another trip through the maze that was the transportation system. On the first subway, we made the mistake of sitting opposite a man that initially seemed alright, but then spent the next ten minutes spitting on the floor, and announcing how he would like to murder someone in a bush. First, it seemed as if he was talking to us, but through sneakily peeking up from my book, I saw that he was looking down to the entire cart, more of an open invitation than picking on one person in particular. This is the kind of inclusiveness that needs to be taught to the Flea Market vendors.
This was 2pm on a Sunday.
We switched train as soon as possible.
Then we got home.
For those interested in what can actually be picked up, my wife bought a really nice designer handbag for $20, that she can’t find for less than a couple hundred dollars online. So, if you can tolerate the odd inappropriate comment and death threat, you too should go to the Richmond Hill Flea Market!
