Congressmember Nydia M. Velázquez presented the Lower East Side Business Improvement District with a federal $37,500 check on Jan. 27 for the Farmers Market which the BID hopes to open in June in collaboration with the Cornell University Cooperative Extension.
Velázquez made the Jan. 17 presentation at University Settlement, 184 Eldridge St. to Joseph Cunin, executive director of the BID, in a ceremony attended by Gretchen Ferenz, of the New York City office of the Cornell Extension.
The tentative site of the market, which will run on Sundays from June through October, on Orchard between Grand and Hester Sts., will be submitted for approval by BID merchants and Community Board 3, Cunin said. The market will be part of the Cornell Extension’s New York City Garden Mosaics and Urban Agriculture program, which is separate and distinct from the city Council On The Environment’s Greenmarket program, operator of the Union Square Greenmarket and other markets.
In Sept. 2003, the BID opened a city Greenmarket at Ludlow and Broome Sts., but it ran for only a season because of the late start and a location that failed to attract patrons, Cunin said.
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