BY LEVAR ALONZO | Smorgasburg, the popular Brooklyn outdoor food market, has come to Duarte Square. The market is open from Friday to Saturday, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m., and Sunday, from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m.
The outdoor-food outfit has signed a two-year lease with Trinity Real Estate for the space, at Canal St. and Sixth Ave. The long-term plan for the open-air lot is for it to be developed with a residential tower, with a new public elementary school in its base. That plan, though, is still yet to be put into action.
Meanwhile, the space has informally been redubbed “Smorg Square,” at least according to welcomers at the venue’s entranceways.
According to its Web site, Smorgasburg is America’s largest weekly open-air food market, attracting 20,000 to 30,000 people to Brooklyn each week. It has two locations in that borough: on the Williamsburg waterfront at Kent Ave. on Saturdays and in Prospect Park on Sundays.
Smorgasburg launched in May 2011 as a spinoff of Brooklyn Flea and has since spawned dozens of small businesses and attracted millions. There is even a Los Angeles Smorgasburg.
Jonathan Butler and Eric Demby founded the outdoor food fest. Butler said the Canal St. installment would not be as big as the ones in Brooklyn.
Previously, Butler has stated that the outdoor venue would have about four or five food trucks on the weekdays and about 30 to 40 pop-up vendors.
Darlene Lutz, a fine-art adviser who lives at 80 Varick St., a residential building fronting on Duarte Square, is one of the main critics of Trinity Real Estate and the idea of Smorgasburg occupying the space.
She said that there are about 20 trucks along with other vendors that pop up, which attracts hundreds of people every weekend.
“Originally it was to be seven to eight vendors,” she said. “Now there are 20.”
Lutz said she has nothing against the vendors that are there. It’s just that she doesn’t want to live with all the noise and odors from the outdoor food operation coming into her apartment.
In a previous Villager article, she worried that her air conditioner become a grease trap due to Smorgasburg.
“It’s like your neighbor is having an endless cookout, like cooking for 500 people all day,” she said. “It gives the start-up businesses a leg up, yes, but this shouldn’t be a permanent gig.”
She said she has researched some of the vendors featured at Smorgasburg and found that they have already been operating for five to six years.
“It’s time for these businesses to look to establish themselves in a brick-and-mortar place,” she said.
Lutz is frustrated that Trinity has frequently leased out the space for large-scale, noisy events, such as Nike Zoom, in 2015, a basketball-and-sneaker-themed extravaganza during NBA All-Star Week.
Occupy Wall Street proteseters hoped to take over the lot after they were evicted from Zuccotti Park back in 2011. But, in that case, at least, Trinity said the square wasn’t suitable for an encampment.
“The lot has been used and abused over and over,” Lutz said.
Community Board 2 is on record supporting the square’s redevelopment with the tower, which is also slated to include a publicly accessible gym space, as well as the school. C.B. 2 leaders have expressed impatience with Trinity’s moving so slowly on the project.
“The small brick-and-mortar businesses are suffering in this community,” Lutz added. “They are definitely taking a huge hit because of Smorgasburg.
“From the looks of things there is no running water, electric or even toilets,” she added of the market’s operation. She said many Smorgasburg-goers reportedly are using nearby place’s restrooms.
Lutz is impatiently waiting for Trinity to start building its residential tower. Even though that project would be noisy, she said she would rather deal with that than “outdoor dining.”
Trinity, five years ago, pushed through a rezoning for the formerly manufacturing-zoned area to allow residential use.
She admitted that pehaps Smorgasburg is not geared toward her generation and is intended to draw a younger crowd.
“It’s the ‘selfie generation,’ ” she reflected. “The place is cool if you want to sit outside and eat on picnic tables. I guess they have their fun by coming to eat the food and get their pictures with it.”
She said Smorgasburg definitely doesn’t plan on closing up shop during the winter time.
“I spoke to someone that is lobbying for them,” she said, “and they told me they were going to be bringing in shipping containers.”
