Around Town header logo
Chelsea Market from 9th Ave and the shop directory


Thirty minutes early for a meeting Friday, I decided to high tail it over to Chelsea Market to take a few quick early morning photos.


202 Eat Shop sign
National Biscuit Company clock and cupboard


I think Chelsea Market has got to be one of the most visually appealing shopping, eating and work complexes in the city. Investor Irwin Cohen and his architects, Vendeberg Architects, did a masterful job of retaining the structure of the old biscuit companies that occupied the building from the 1890s up until the 1950s.


Vegetable aisle signs
National-Biscuit-Company-clock-and-Warm-Up-with-Witches-bakery-sign
Friedmans Lunch Place sign


The shop keepers on the ground floor have done an exceptional job of maintaining a certain homemade, old-style look-and-feel to their signage and the way they display their goods in their shop windows. Of course there’s plenty of new mixed in with what looks like old.


Innovatix sign
Cool metal ATM sign
Chelsea Market Baskets sign and Dicksons Meats sign
Ladies and Gents sign with arrow pointing


Exposed brick, pipes and old signboards throughout the market give the space an authentic industrial feel. There’s also supposed to be an original train shed someplace in the market. But I don’t think I’ve ever seen it. Then again, I don’t know what a train shed is supposed to look like.


Lobster Place sign
Sponge Bob and Cookie Monster in the bakery showcase


It’s a good thing I already had breakfast. Or I’d definitely be all over Sponge Bob and his cute little Muppet cupcake friends on the shelf above. They all seem to be saying, “Eat me.”


Curtain of lights archway and big clock


These curtains of light strands remind me of the hippy-dippy beads Anthony used to have hanging in the kitchen doorway of our East Village apartment. They were quite festive. I wonder how many strands of lights it took to do this?

Mary Maru