I spent a little bit of Saturday and most of Sunday at the Brooklyn Flea, which opened up this past autumn a few blocks away from my apartment. On Saturday, I decided to just stop by the flea market before I saw a movie, and I found both this awesome locker for $120 and a cool German Bundesadler Eagle pin for $2. The locker — rusted and peeling and perfect for Brooklynite artists with a love for vintage — would have been great for the new art studio that my roommate Morgan and I are trying to furnish. I would have stored all my photo equipment in it while Morgan would store her art supplies (creatives, am I right?). However I was in a rush, and I wanted my roommate’s opinion, so I figured I can go on Sunday and buy both the locker and the pin then.
Well, the next day, both were gone.
It just shows that if you don’t act fast in the flea market — especially in a neighborhood with a growing millennial, artist, and yuppie population — you’re bound to lose whatever piques your consumer interest. Spend fast, I suppose.
I was with my friend Alex at the time of my Sunday trip to the BK Flea, and we passed by the vintage eyeglass booth that she bought her old glasses from. It’s called Today’s Vintage, and they sell one-of-kind glasses from the 1930’s to the 80’s to now. The owners are incredibly friendly, and they approached both Alex and me without the obtrusive and too-enterprising attitude most salespeople overwhelm others with. Alex got glasses that made her look like The Church Lady, and I found a pair that I really like. After looking at a few more booths at the BK Flea, I went home and got my eyeglass prescription from two years ago… only to return to the flea half-an-hour later.
Now two things: I was in the market to get some new eyeglasses, and the prices over at Today’s Vintage were actually more affordable than going to cheap-yet-trendy Warby Parker, which everyone in New York fucking owns a pair now. Second, I was planning to spend my Spring Break on some dumb vacation, but since I went nowhere and did nothing, I decided to use the money I set aside to buy two pairs of glasses:
One is a callback to my old horn-rimmed glasses that I got from a shitty St. Mark’s sunglasses vendor and replaced the lenses with prescription ones (needless to say, considering the frames were mass-produced in China, they are now broken). The other pair makes me look like a skater or Terry Richardson. In both cases, I think it’ll be nice to switch between my current glasses and these new ones; I’m trying to be a little fashionable.
Fuck, I do live in New York.
Fuck, I am a hipster.