Good morning on this pleasant Tuesday.
Holiday bazaars are a seasonal staple, with crowds filling prominent pockets of the city in search of hot chocolate and stocking stuffers. For a more authentic New York market, though, you’ll need to travel a few blocks farther than the last stop on the sightseeing bus.
Every Saturday in December, La Marqueta, a community-based market space nestled beneath the elevated Metro-North tracks along Park Avenue in East Harlem, hosts a holiday pop-up market.
Between booths of artistic crafts and cafe counters are tables where visitors can sip coffee, mingle with neighbors or just rest and tap their feet to the salsa music providing a pulse to the market’s ambience.
Puerto Rican flags and red bows hang from the walls. Handcrafted jewelry is displayed between knickknacks and paintings. One table sells Caribbean moonshine to the thirsty, while another offers African ingredients.
“This is a market for the neighborhood, for El Barrio,” said Jessenia Cagle, 41, manager of La Marqueta and an associate of the city’s Economic Development Corporation.
A fixture of the market is the Hot Bread Kitchen, a nonprofit organization that teaches immigrant women how to bake, then helps them find employment. Peek through the glass window in the back of the market and you can see the full bakery that doubles as their classroom.
Continue reading the main storyIn partnership with the City Council, La Marqueta grants private vendors permits to operate in their space. Most of the merchants are mom-and-pop shop owners without their own storefront, but with enough regulars to keep their stalls open for business.
Melissa Mark-Viverito, who is the City Council speaker and represents East Harlem, announced in September that the market’s outdoor space would undergo a $5.5-million face-lift — a renovation that will help the market grow and, Ms. Cagle hopes, attract more vendors.
La Marqueta hopes to one day boom as it did in its heyday around the 1960s — when it was the go-to spot for all sorts, serving the wave of Latin American immigrants who planted their cultures’ seeds in the neighborhood.
“A lot of residents here have a very strong sense of community,” said Ms. Cagle. “For a neighborhood like this, that’s what you’ve got to have. To preserve what you’ve got.”
Here’s what else is happening:
Weather
Not a bad day to take a stroll through a holiday market.
It’ll be the warmest day of the week, with some sunshine and a high near 51.
At the rate we’re going, for better or for worse, we probably won’t have a white Christmas.
In the News
• A fire caused by a menorah tore through a Brooklyn home, killing three children and their mother and badly injuring their father. [New York Times]
• New York City’s Education Department is planning to wind down its Renewal program for low-performing schools, an expensive initiative that has struggled to show results. [New York Times]
• New York’s biggest police union is sending officers to protest Mayor Bill de Blasio as he heads to Des Moines, Iowa, to burnish his image on the national stage. [New York Times]
• The New York region is home to a large number Democratic politicians with national ambitions, setting up possible showdowns in the 2020 election. [New York Times]
• Bowery Ballroom and the Mercury Lounge, two mainstays of the indie club scene, joined forces with the concert giant Live Nation. [New York Times]
• A generation inspired by “Paris is Burning,” the iconic film about ballroom culture, is keeping Voguing alive in New York. Watch them as they duck walk and death drop. [New York Times]
• How a practice known as “passing the trash” allows New Jersey teachers suspected or accused of misconduct with students to move from job to job. [NJ.com]
• Spurred by a ProPublica report, the New York City Council passed the country’s first bill to address algorithmic discrimination in city government. [ProPublica]
• Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo wants to institute a minimum-wage increase for tipped workers. [New York Daily News]
• After years of bullying, a young Harlem man finds solace in writing and dreams of one day becoming a household name. [New York Times]
• Today’s Metropolitan Diary: “Remembering Washington Market”
• For a global look at what’s happening, see Your Morning Briefing.
Coming Up Today
• Santa and his elves glide through Manhattan on a Fruit of the Loom sleigh, making stops at Rockefeller Center, Washington Square Park and other locations. You can follow his journey at #FruitTracksSanta. Times vary. [Free to watch]
• Join a klezmer Hanukkah celebration with the tsimbl player Pete Rushefsky and the violinist Jake Shulman-Ment, at the Poe Park Visitor Center in the Bronx. 2:30 p.m. [Free]
• “Beyond the Flat World: An exploration of non-Euclidean virtual reality,” a talk with professors about hyperbolic space, at the National Museum of Mathematics near Madison Square Park in Manhattan. 6 p.m. [$10]
• The Comic Book Club hosts a “weekly gabfest” on the latest comic book revelations and industry news, at the Peoples Improv Theater Loft in Chelsea. 8 p.m. [Free]
• Looking ahead: On Friday and Saturday, adults can see the Holiday Train Show after hours — with cocktails and live music — as part of “Bar Car Nights” at the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx.
• Islanders host Red Wings, 7 p.m. (MSG+). Rangers host Ducks, 7 p.m. (MSG).
• Alternate-side parking remains in effect until Dec. 25.
• For more events, see The New York Times’s Arts & Entertainment guide.
And Finally ...
New York is the city that never shuts up.
And if you’ve ever had the displeasure of being woken up by the shrill whine of a drill or other construction equipment, some good news: The City Council is expected to pass legislation today to keep things quieter.
“Our new law will turn down the volume on after-hours construction noise in residential neighborhoods,” said Councilman Ben Kallos, who wrote the bill with the support of the Department of Environmental Protection and who has made the dimming of noise one of his top priorities.
The legislation requires that the city address construction-related noise complaints as they are happening, instead of days or weeks later. Inspectors will be equipped with technology to measure noise levels from the street, rather than from inside an apartment, and they will have the authority to issue on-the-spot stop work orders for disruptive construction that violates the new rules.
We like the sound of that.
New York Today is a morning roundup that is published weekdays at 6 a.m. If you don’t get it in your inbox already, you can sign up to receive it by email here.
For updates throughout the day, like us on Facebook.
What would you like to see here to start your day? Post a comment, email us at nytoday@nytimes.com, or reach us via Twitter using #NYToday.
Follow the New York Today columnists, Alexandra Levine and Jonathan Wolfe, on Twitter.
You can find the latest New York Today at nytoday.com.
Continue reading the main story