Noho market is like a street fair, without sausages

By Albert Amateau

		Villager photo by Elisabeth Robert
At the Broadway Indoor Market, you can buy “The Predator,” made from motorcycle parts, left, or one of Corrine Mandell’s decorator doghouses.

It was the beginning of the street fair season, but a group of vendors who usually make the outdoor circuit moved indoors at the end of last month to Broadway Indoor Market in Noho.

The market at 714 Broadway near Fourth St., is the brainchild of Hymie Berchowitz, from South Africa, who has been selling imports from that country in various Manhattan street fairs and flea markets for 20 years.

“I though there should be a better place for vendors to do business and serve a repeat clientele, and in the current commercial real estate market with empty stores available, I had the opportunity,” he said.

Berchowitz rented the space formerly occupied by Antique Boutique for the summer and hopes to make it a permanent home for the 18 vendors he brought indoors. “I spent about two-and-a-half months searching for people with the best merchandise, and I found a good eclectic mix,” he said. The place opened for the first time on May 22.

In front of the eclectic storefront’s window one day last week, Sophie White, 19, a Tribeca resident and Cooper Union student majoring in art, passed out flyers inviting passersby to the indoor market. “I like the way your blue eyeliner matches your hair,” a visitor told her. White flashed a charming smile in response.

Inside, the vendors occupy stalls along each side of the narrow shop, as if it were a permanent street fair — without the usual sausage vendors.

Karma, a man from Nepal, was selling Tibetan imports and related items including pashmina shawls manufactured by a partner in Nepal. Further along, Elaine Bertcher was at “Chatchkees” selling beaded jewelry and craft supplies for jewelry makers plus Native American silver items handmade by a Zuni friend in New Mexico.

Kit Junya, who hails from Thailand, was selling sculpture made of motorcycle and automobile parts by an artist in Bangkok. They ranged in size from a four-ft. tall, 286-lb. grisly-looking humanoid called “The Predator,” priced at $3,000 to eight-in. figures priced as low as $15. “They’re all one of a kind,” he told a visitor.

Corrine Mandell, a Chelsea resident, presided over Corrine’s Creations, hand-decorated crafts and furniture. A wicker, flowery “doggie garden apartment” was on sale last week for about $500 and Corrine said she could make them to order. “It takes about two weeks to make one,” she noted.

At a stall called Mad Hat’n, a guy who gave his name only as Bom 5, was decorating mesh caps in graffiti style. “I started break dancing with the original Rock Steady Crew in the Bronx in 1977. We were part of the Zulu Nation,” said Bom, who admitted to 39 years but looked like 19. He said he learned his art in 1976 with the MTA — Mad Transit Arts — and applied it to mesh hats about two years ago.

Aimee Grubel, who designs and makes women’s clothes in her studio in Inwood, was selling at another stall in the indoor market. “I’ve sold to stores in Los Angeles and San Diego, and I’ve done freelance design for Marc Jacobs, Oscar de la Renta, Christian Dior and DKNY,” she said. Aimee also sells her clothes on Saturdays at The Market NYC at 268 Mulberry St between Prince and Houston.

Matt Zuckerman, who worked in the financial markets until a year ago, was selling imported watches with unusual leather straps that he makes himself.

And for people interested in the occult, Teri, a Gypsy who lives in Astoria, was giving readings at the indoor market at prices ranging from $5 to $60 depending on the method (hands, cards) and depth. “I’m a fourth-generation true psychic,” she told a visitor. “I was born with the gift.”