8:00 a.m. Saturday morning: I am up and moving, ready to start the day, a full day at that. Flea markets, rummage sales, farmers markets galore. With rain in today's forcast I knew I had to start early. I left my apartment at twenty till nine and headed uptown to Hell's Kitchen to see what all the fuss was about. Again, thanks to a tip from my aunt I had many markets to check out, but I had google-mapped it all perfectly. Hitting the L to the A (my usual train routine it seems), I get off at 42nd St.. and 8th Ave. and walk over to 39th between 9th and 10th.
As seen in the picture I was greeted by the devil himself, completely full of hot air. Arriving minutes after nine, vendors were still setting up and I was already seeing fabulous finds. At that moment I back tracked, found the nearest ATM and withdrew the maximum amount I was going to allow myself to spend... or so I thought. Continuing back through Hell's Kitchen flea market I was finding a few wonderful things but I wasn't sure if the vintage 1940's Louis Vuitton was worth the wear or if snakeskin belts for 20 bucks were worth my time. Then I stroll over to the next vendor and see several vintage women's magazines. 1920s and 1930s, Farmer's Wife, Good Housekeeping, REDBOOK, etc. It was incredible. I began talking with the vendor and his wife about the magazine's and about my passion for magazine's. Of course the value of a 1920s women's magazine is ten times the amount of the cover price, but the the stories and history of magazine journalism lies within the pages of such publications. So I bought one and gave the vendor my e-mail to let me know when he gets more in the future.
Blah...blah...blah... we talked for several minutes and come to find out his wife went to school at Mizzou. Small world I know. In the side of their booth was a set of walnut furniture which was fantastic. It looked similar to the pieces my grandparents used to have which are now partly in my apartment and partly in my room at my parents house. Custom made for a client, pure walnut, tongue and groove drawers, hand crafted legs, built in the in mid 50s -- early modern furniture, and priced unreasonably low for the entire four piece set... I even told the couple they were crazy for selling that cheap.
A couple of phone calls to my dad, and a couple phone calls not answered by my mom, I ended up buying the furniture... even cheaper than the asking price! Yes I know, your asking yourself, how am I going to get all that furniture back to Arkansas?
After hailing a mini-van taxi, three men loaded all of the furniture up and drove to my apartment where I was met by Haynes and his dad who helped me bring it all up to my apartment... on the tenth floor.
As I sit on my bed typing this post, I am still in awe of how fast this all happened, as is my mom. So now that all this furniture is in my apartment, how is going to get 1300 miles south? A shipping company is coming to pick it up this week and after it is packed and put on a palette, it will be taken on the railway to Little Rock, then taken by truck and delivered. Please hold your breath until I pull this off.
After all these events the rain came down like cats and dogs, which put a bit of a damper on my day, but I headed back out and went down to Greenwich Village. I walked around for about an hour finding that both markets I wanted to attend had been run off by the rain. I met up with a friend from school and we ran into a few stops and good eats we had been meaning to try before we left. Our favorite was Yogurtland - cheapest yogurt in town, and the best part is... it is self serve and then pay by the ounce. Muy delicioso!
More coming soon!
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