This Year’s Union Square Holiday Market
Normally, when you walk into Union Square you can expect it to be full of the usual suspects: tourists taking pictures, a few friendly games of chess, and tons of people coming and going from the train station every minute. However, during the month of December, Union Square gets a bit of a face lift. The holiday market has returned, bringing a welcomed sense of holiday spirit to the area.
Urbanspace, who puts on the annual holiday market, is a company dedicated to creating immersive public markets where creativity, entrepreneurship, and community flourish. The company started in London, England in 1970 and moved to New York City in 1993 where their first project was the Grand Central Holiday Fair. Throughout their 40+ years of work they have completed over 50 different projects to “create vibrant new places for community and commercial gathering”. Urbanspace also currently runs other markets in New York such as the Columbus Circle Holiday Market and Holiday Shops at Bryant Park.
Urbanspace is a strong believer of small business, and small businesses make up a big percentage of the booths at their markets. The process of becoming a vendor at one of their markets is simple. Prospective vendors must go on to Urbanspace’s website to create an account and give them information about their business. Then throughout the year Urbanspace alerts vendors as to when the applications for different markets are available to be filled out. After applications have been filled out, they are submitted to a committee along with a proposal for what the vendor would sell at the market. Once a vendor is accepted, all they need to do after that is begin designing their shop.
There is a broad selection of items you can find at the holiday market which is part of what makes it so unique. Made From Coins is a company based out of Woodstock, NY, that makes artful jewelry from American coins. “All the coins come from before 1960” said the vendor working there. I also talked to the owner of Time Will Tell as she was selling her homemade watches and sweaters. She said her inspiration for making and selling the sweaters began when “I had made myself this sweater last year, and when I wore it I kept getting complimented on it, so I decided to make 50 more and start selling them.”
One of the food places at the market has been getting a lot of attention, but it is not all about the food and drinks they are selling. No Chewing Allowed! gives out free samples of the truffles they are selling, but their one rule is that there is absolutely no chewing allowed, and they are not afraid to yell at you if you forget. As for the food itself, it has been getting great reviews. Stokley Towles ‘20 says, “I absolutely love the truffles, I’d recommend them to anyone.” Their hot chocolate has been getting good reviews too. Wyatt Colburn ‘20 said, “It’s pretty good. It’s really unlike other hot chocolates I’ve had and one of the better ones.”
The market will be open until December 24th. Weekday hours are 11am-8pm, Saturdays 10am-8pm, Sundays 11am-7pm. On Christmas Eve it will be open from 11am-4pm.
Go check it out for all of your holiday shopping needs, or even just for one cup of hot chocolate.