Summer flea market shopping season feels like it’s just kicked off, but there’s one market that you won’t be able to throw your hard-earned/easily-inherited dollars at any more. After just under a year of existence, Bushwick’s Shwick Market threw in the towel this past weekend. Were they bullied out by newcomer the Bushwick Flea? Nope, it sounds like just a case of the economics not adding up. Although the founder isn’t leaving without critiquing the spending habits of Bushwickians. Bushwickites? Bushwickers? Whatever.
The Brooklyn Paper had the story of the market closing, with owner Chris Carew frankly stating that the location on a dead end street on Myrtle and Willoughby was maybe a less than ideal place to draw visitors to. Carew also admitted that beyond the vendors selling their wares, they didn’t have much to keep people sticking around at the market.
He also extended that radical honesty to assessing the people of Bushwick, as he told the paper: “[T]he only things people spend money on in Bushwick are beer, coffee, and rent.”
We think that’s slightly inaccurate, since when we lived in Bushwick, we also spent our money on drugs and bodega sandwiches, but it’s been a couple years so maybe all the bodegas are closed and everyone is on some kind of drug-free health kick. Hopefully that’s not the case though.
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