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NEW YORK, NY July 19, 2004 — A group of Manhattan merchants says it's getting shut out of the neighborhood it's been working in for over 120 years because of high rent increases. There are only 30 flower businesses left in what is known as the Flower District along Sixth Avenue. WNYC's Richard Hake is following their efforts to move to another historic market.

Jeffrey Serafini trims the stems of a new variety of Dutch Long Stem Roses at the Fisher and Page wholesale flower shop on 28th Street. He's been working in Manhattan's Flower Market for the past 16 years and oversees the distribution of some 2-3 tons of flowers each week. These are destined for high end florists and special event designers who create displays for places like the Plaza Hotel.

Over here we've got four countries on display. Those thistles are from Holland and that cabbage is from Holland. You've got California greens down at the bottom there. You've got local product from New York and New Jersey in the Perisan Branches and the quints and the apples on the branches there. You've got some local flowers in the gazanea you've got some hydrangea which comes from Holland, but at this time of year we've got some from Italy etc.

In the early morning hours, 28th street between 6th and 7th Avenues looks more like a narrow footpath in a tropical jungle than a metropolitan sidewalk. Vendors have been selling local buds and branches since the turn of the century, and now with modern day technology and transportation, Serafini says, he can get customers any flower from anywhere in the world in a matter of hours.

You'll have stems that are cut in Ecuador on a Saturday and that are in New York on Monday morning. You can have flowers that were in a greenhouse in Holland on a Monday night, Tuesday morning it's in here Tuesday.

But now the industrial district is shrinking. Back in the mid 90's zoning changes allowed for residential development. High rents and congestion are squeezing out some of the 40 or so flower related businesses. The Flower Market Association has been looking for a new neighborhood to set up shop for years, but now believe it has one. Some 14 blocks to the south is The Gansevoort Meat Market.

Trucks idling on the Belgian Paving Blocks that make up Washington Street are loaded with barrels of fat and bones headed to soap makers and other recyclers. Bob Wilkins, President of Lamb Unlimited says the Meat Packing District is a three part neighborhood that would welcome the flower sellers.

You have the restaurants and nightclubs that close at about 2 o'clock in the morning. We start our work at about that time. We finish around 1-1:30. At that point, both the retail operations and the restaurants have re-opened. And the retailers go until about 7-8:o'clock at night. Restaurants go till about 2 with the bars and the clubs. We just augment each other beautifully. It's just a great place to be.

It could also be a great place for the flower sellers. Low-rise, refrigerated warehouses and street level loading docks lend themselves to the distribution of perishable goods, whether rhotadendron or rib roast. And with the influx of trendy bars, clubs, restaurants and boutiques, many long time merchants would welcome the balance that traditional market tenants could bring.

Year before I was the only queen on the block. Now I'm the old queen on the block.

Florent Maurolee who's suffering from a bout of laryngiti has been serving mussels, steak frites, burgers and omelets at his French-American diner on Gansevoort Street for the past 19 years and says the flower merchants would only add to the area's historic eclectic energy.

It's about people mixing. Club kids with blue hair next to meat packers, next to a businessman who decided to go wild, next to a little old lady from Arkansas who read about it in American Airlines Magazine, who has blue hair too.

But it's uncommon to hear of a neighborhood welcoming more business. Jo Hamilton is a nearby resident and the co-chair of the Save Gansevoort Market Task Force which was partly responsible for getting the area declared a historic district last year.

If Gansevoort Market loses its connection to its market past then there's the danger that it'll become Disneyfied where the buildings might exist, but if the buildings don't exist without a feel for their original uses then what is it?

She also says the re-location of the Flower Market will slow down the nightlife insurgence which she says some residents are fed up with.

From last summer to this summer we have doubled the number of drinkers in Gansevoort Market. And they're here until four o'clock and whenever you have that many people they're out on the streets. And some of the clubs encourage that rope line on the outside to create the buzz.

Hamilton's group, along with the Flower Market Association has hired a real estate consultant firm to do a feasibility study on moving the flower sellers. Terry Stanley, from Washington Square Partners, is studying traffic patterns and other logistical problems of relocation.

We're looking particularly in this area. West of Washington Street and north of Gansevoort Street. There's some public ownership in the buildings. The High Line terminates here ..INTERNAL EDIT if we can find a way to make the flower market a part of it then that's certainly our task.


A recommendation is expected by the fall and then the process will go to the City and State. If the plan called the Meat Market Blooms does eventually go through ..something else will change that's been permeating The Gansevoort market since the 1880's. The pungent odor of decaying meat will be sweetened by the aroma of the roses. For WNYC, I'm Richard Hake.