The dress code, emailed the night before, came less as an expectation than a warning: “The event will take place on the selling floor of the Fulton Fish Market, which is typically kept at a balmy 40 degrees year-round… As such, please wear your thermals.”
As folks meandered through the sprawling parking lot that wraps around the market the following night, it quickly became clear that most of them – bundled in their winter coats – had heeded the message as they walked past the “FORK LIFTS ONLY” sign hanging above the open gate entrance and into what is essentially a 400,000-square-foot refrigerator.
The most significant wholesale fish market on the East Coast, located in the Bronx’s Hunts Point neighborhood, had been impressively transformed into the venue for a fishmongers’ storytelling event. (Imagine if Captain Ahab did The Moth.)
Scotch flowed and a theremin player performed in a cordoned-off corner. Justin “The Baron Ambrosia” Fornal – public-access TV legend, Explorers’ Club member, Small Game Dinner creator and the night’s host – kicked off the evening by displaying a “Jenny Haniver” he’d acquired in Oaxaca.
“ Fishmongers, when they’re on the dock, when they had nothing to do and they were out of fish, they still needed to find other ways to make money,” Formal explained, holding up the devilish object.
They would dry out skates and rays, carve them to look like little mermaids and sell them.
“So way before the Cabbage Patch Kid, you had this kind of smelly, creepy little demonic creature that children would go down to the docks and buy from the fishmongers.”
Fish in a ceremonial row in the parking lot outside the Fulton Fish Market.
Ryan Kailath
Fishmongers, young and old, took the stage to share tales of lonely lobster boats and antics in a bygone Lower Manhattan, where the market was originally located: Gamblers, boozers, men with rolled up wads of hundreds perpetually in their pants pockets, men who had stalls here for half a century, and men who followed fishing traditions like law.
There were heaps of nostalgia for the old market, a beloved but brutal, largely outdoor setup that contrasts sharply with the Disneyfied shopping mall South Street Seaport has now become.
“ It was a community, it was a neighborhood. This building is nice, but it’s not a neighborhood,” longtime Market veteran Eddie Cruci said from the stage, which was a tiered pile of pallets. Although the market will have been in Hunts Point for 20 years next month, the area is far more isolated and not steeped in stories like the market’s original home of nearly two centuries was.
The Market’s CEO, Nicole Ackerina, at one point took the stage to talk about the inspiration for the evening: A test drive for what hosting events in the Market’s vast facilities during the mongers’ off-hours might look like. Many chefs, community groups, workforce development programs and others have reached out about utilizing the space following its overnight operation, when it mostly sits empty.
Fish Market CEO Nicole Ackerina onstage at the storytelling event.
Ryan Kailath
“We kind of had to figure out, what does the future look like? So we have a bunch of new initiatives that are starting up,” said Ackerina, who wore a red vinyl jacket and gold thigh-high boots. “We also would love to bring galas to the Market.”
The mongers are for it. “This is long time overdue,” said Bobby “Tuna” DiGregorio, who’s worked at the Market for 53 years.
The Hunts Point location has never been “given its full celebration,” he said. “So I’m delighted to see this happening tonight.”