Brooklyn ARTery Flea Market Coming to Ditmas Park

Starting on May 20, a flea market will be up and running in the PS 139 playground on Cortelyou Road. Neighbor Susan Siegel, former executive director at the Flatbush Development Corporation, got the green light from the principal and the Parent’s Association at PS 139 to create the Brooklyn ARTery Flea Market, which will coincide with the Cortelyou Greenmarket on Sundays from May through October, 9am-4pm.

This isn’t Susan’s first neighborhood endeavor. She’s the one who set up the Greenmarket, and she also spearheaded the Flatbush CommUNITY Garden. Now she’s hoping to fill a void in our neighborhood’s retail space.

“My thing is all about filling niches in the community,” Susan explained. “We’re experiencing a little bit of cultural leakage at the moment. Artists have to leave the neighborhood to sell their work. While we’ve come a long way in the past few years for performances–now you don’t even have to leave Cortelyou Road to hear some great music–we’re still missing the retail.”

She wants to have a good representation of local artisans and craftspeople, and she’s looking to curate a mix of vendors who’ll sell jewelry, clothing, bags, cards, furniture, home decor, crafts, accessories, and more.

“I want to have nice, high-quality, handmade merchandise,” Susan explained. “I don’t want people to just dig stuff out of their basement. We’re going to have interesting things that we can’t find here now.”

Brooklyn ARTery will set up within the playground on Cortelyou, with between 15 and 20 vendors. The playground will still be open, and Susan wants to make sure that this works for parents, kids, vendors, and shoppers.

“I’m all for community,” she said. “Let’s see if we can do both–have the kids playing and shoppers walking around. I want to reassure the parents that I’m not taking away the play space, and I’m not taking away the places to sit. There are just going to be other things happening in this space. And we’ll adapt as we need to.”

Depending on how this first season goes, Susan says that expansion is a possibility, but for now she’s just hoping that it’s a sustainable project for the community.

“Hopefully it’s got legs, and it will be a permenant fixture like other things I’ve done in the neighborhood,” she said.

Vendor registration is now open. Space is limited, so if you’re interested you should act soon. See the website for more details, but here are the basics:

Special introductory rates for May-August
$100/1 Sunday
$75/any 4 Sundays
$50/day/any 8+ Sundays
(Paid in advance)

Looking for good mix of handmade merchandise:
Jewelry, bags, clothing, health and body products, home décor and furniture, packaged food products, cards, crafts, and accessories.

If you have ideas about what kinds of vendors you’d most like to see at Brooklyn ARTery, let us know in the comments. For more information, contact Susan at brooklynartery@gmail.com.