The Winter Home of the Brooklyn Flea

The weekend before last, TD and I headed out to Brooklyn to visit the Brooklyn Flea. I'm a huge fan of this flea market which is located in the warmer months in a school playground in Fort Greene. The coolest people in New York go to it. For these winter months, the Flea moved indoors, into a fantastic space at One Hanson Place, which is the old Williamsburg Savings Bank Tower. Built in 1927, the tower has 37 floors and was for a long time the tallest building in Brooklyn. Now, the top of it is filled with condos, and the bottom is the home of the Brooklyn Flea on the weekends.


The vast vaulted space looks like a Gothic church, but it's not a church, it's a former bank. A temple to capitalism I guess you could say.


The details are really fantastic, with Romanesque columns, tinted glass windows, gold leaf ceilings and elaborate chandeliers.


The Flea includes more than one hundred vendors selling vintage furniture, clothes, collectibles and antiques, as well as new jewelry and art by local artists. I loved these metal globe lamps; very Rough Luxe.


The Flea covers three floors in the bank; here is the view from upstairs.


On the way downstairs, the beautiful ceiling is mosaiced with blue tiles, and iron silhouettes decorate the upper door arches.


In the basement, the bank vault is filled with local food vendors. Brooklyn is becoming famous for its gourmet food. Delish.


After that, we walked down Atlantic Avenue and visited some familiar haunts. Then we were downright parched so we stopped at the Brooklyn Inn in Boerum Hill for a pint or two. It has to be one of the most charming spots for a bar.

You snag a stool in the windows and watch the world go by as you sip a Brooklyn Lager and dusk settles in.

It's a very pleasant place to be on a Saturday afternoon in January.