Fulton Fish Market

Published on: October 20th, 2021 | Written by: Bad Guy Joe

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The long abandoned ‘New Market’ building has final met a most disturbing of ends.

History
Built in 1939, the “New Market” building of the Fulton Fish Market was a welcome expansion to the crowded existing structures. This building was constructed just north of the original ‘Tin Building‘ market—a structure that was built in 1907, devastated by an arsonist fire in 1995, rebuilt, flooded out during Hurricane Sandy (2012), torn down in 2018, and now rebuilt again.

The entire market was a very busy place right up until the end. I recall going past it a few times on class trips in the 1980s. The fish stench was unbearable. While I didn’t shoot photos of it way back in the day, you can check out this great shot on Wikipedia of the interior of the New Market building in full use.

The entire fish market moved up to Hunts Point in 2005. After a few years of limited use, the New Market building was left abandoned. It sat decaying while various plans to tear it down and replace it with a tall new structure came and went.

Various explorers told me about how accessible the New Market building had become. It wasn’t until the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic that I got to check it out. The first time was with Logan Hicks—during one of our multiple late night photography trips. We found the entire place vacant, with the front and roof doors wide open. I returned a few times during 2020. It just became this very chill spot to go shoot rooftop nudes and creepy photos. The rooftop truly was amazing, with great views of the Brooklyn Bridge. Inside, the building was devoid of anything of value. The only stuff left behind were old work lockers, rusted out safes, decaying wood and benchwork, a single room with a mattress and bugs. So many god damned bugs. As a photographer, I’m glad the people I photographed in this place were not too adverse to how absolutely fucking gross it was with all these roaches all over the damn place.

The final death blow for this building came early in 2021. Sometime over the winter, squatters had moved in. Perhaps all the bugs were killed off during the bitterly cold winter, or frozen out by the repeated snow storms in early February. Regardless, at some point homeless people found the building and moved in. At the end of the month, some of those squatters turned on 19-year-old Rosalee Sanchez, murdering her inside the building. They left her corpse hidden inside for a week. As the NY Post explained: “A trio of out-of-state vagrants who’d been living in the long-neglected warehouse — Austin Boehm, 25, Christian Mercado, 20, and Amber Wilson, 33 — admitted to the crime and were arrested.” Amber was charged not with the murder, but trying to conceal the body. She was somehow out of jail and living in a tent on the Upper West Side just a few weeks later. At the moment, she is listed as ‘release on own recognizance’, and her court appearances are ongoing. It seems kinda wild that someone charged with 3 felonies related to a murder is apparently just living on NYC streets (She does seem to have made her court appearances though). Meanwhile, Boehm and Mercado are being held on Rikers without bail, and court dates well into next year.

Interestingly, the various media stories about this murder quote cops who claim the building was the scene of repeated calls over the years concerning violent crimes and drug use. Throughout our various trips to this building in 2020, we literally saw no one else on the property. Had it not been for the pandemic, we should surely have hosted a party in this building. It was just that chill. Until it wasn’t.

Regardless, the murder lead to the New Market building’s demolition timeline being stepped up considerably. Work began over the summer and quickly proceeded, finally wiping this now cursed structure off the face of the planet. What an unfitting demise for such an interesting historic old building.

Comments

NOTE: It sometimes takes a short while for comments to be approved - unfortunately there's a lot of spam comments that come in. I absolutely love when y'all share personal stories of friends relatives etc who worked in these places. It really helps capture what these places were like before they closed up shop.

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