Market in East Harlem in Decline

By ALEX MINDLIN
Published: May 18, 2008

DURING its heyday in the 1950s and ’60s, La Marqueta was a steaming, fragrant, noisy, tropical bazaar, sheltering 500 mostly Puerto Rican vendors in five buildings under the elevated Metro-North tracks on Park Avenue between East 111th and 116th Streets.

Dith Pran/The New York Times, 1986
The outdoor market under the railroad tracks, once an integral part of East Harlem life, has declined in recent decades.
Suzanne DeChillo/The New York Times

In this enclosed market, once the spiritual heart of East Harlem, merchants presided over stalls selling, among other things, rabbits, tube socks and Tito Puente records. The ailing or luckless could buy medicinal herbs, religious icons, vials of what was described as bat’s blood and black candles to drive away enemies.

click  [New York Times] for full article.