Celina

Commerce

New sidewalk fish markets all over Manhattan's Chinatown

My uncommon economic indicator is that there are more and more folks—Black, white, Latino—from outside the neighborhood selling fish they just caught in the East River on the street. They pick a spot, set up a crate and maybe a bin with ice in it, and plop their fish down. Some still have fishing rods with them. Everyone haggles over the prices.

Local Chinese folks have always done this—for example, you see senior citizens taking parts of their house basil plants, planting them in Styrofoam cups, and selling them on the sidewalk.... but the influx of new arrivals, and the racial diversity of these impromptu street vendors, feels new.

East Broadway and Catherine Street