Waiting for Fish

Gulls, seemingly aware of nearby signs, wait to feed at the Fulton Street Fish Market in 1971. The writing on the wall, so to speak, announced a full menu of the good stuff — oysters, clams and smoked fish _ that arrived daily at the fish market, a fixture in Lower Manhattan for 180 years.

The historic Fulton Fish Market closed in November 2005 and began operating out of a new gleaming refrigerated hub in the Bronx. Dan Barry of The Times gave the fish market a proper sendoff on July 10, 2005, writing, “It smells of truck exhaust and fish guts. Of glistening skipjacks and smoldering cigarettes; fluke, salmon and Joe Tuna’s cigar. Of Canada, Florida, and the squid-ink East River. Of funny fish-talk riffs that end with profanities spat onto the mucky pavement, there to mix with coffee spills, beer blessings, and the flowing melt of sea-scented ice.

“This fragrance of fish and man pinpoints one place in the New York vastness: a small stretch of South Street where peddlers have sung the song of the catch since at least 1831, while all around them, change. They were hawking fish here when an ale house called McSorley’s opened up; when a presidential aspirant named Lincoln spoke at Cooper Union; when the building of a bridge to Brooklyn ruined their upriver view.

“Take it in now, if you wish, if you dare, because the rains will come to rinse this distinct aroma from the city air. Some Friday soon, perhaps next month, the fish sellers will spill their ice and shutter their stalls, pack their grappling hooks and raise a final toast beneath the ba-rump and hum of the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Drive.”