New Amsterdam Market will recognize the Seaport’s 400-year history as a public market district. Its products will be authentic to the region. And by creating a haven for butchers, grocers, fishmongers and other provisioners, it will furthermore help preserve an equally authentic New York tradition of food retailing by independent purveyors.
The time is right for such an institution. New Yorkers are growing dissatisfied with anonymous, globalized commerce that has no connection to place, history, or our local and regional economy. Supermarkets now disguise themselves as market halls, casting their staff as “purveyors” and promoting dubious connections to local, seasonal production. And many of the city’s neighborhoods, once known for their unique shops and independent businesses, are now dominated by chain stores ranging from discount retailers to “high end” boutiques.
Visionaries have worked to counteract this homogenizing influence and preserve the unique identity of their neighborhoods. Special attention has been given to the Seaport, the sole remaining legacy of our city’s commercial maritime origins. In 2006, the advocacy group SeaportSpeaks gathered local businesses and residents, government officials, prominent civic leaders, and local developers—including General Growth Properties, a mall developer and the district’s largest leaseholder—for a two-day strategic planning session to discuss the future of this historic neighborhood. They concluded that above all, any future development in the area must be authentic:
People are drawn to what is real, not artificial. In saving the rare, historic buildings and stone-paved streets of the city’s first port ... the Seaport’s founders left New Yorkers with a glorious legacy.
The challenge today is to fulfill their vision by animating those buildings, streets, and piers with uses that are true to the District’s character, while serving the needs of its residents, area workers, and visitors of today and tomorrow.
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