Piece Description

For 185 years, the Fulton Fish Market has been selling fish from lower Manhattan -- just south of the Brooklyn Bridge, along the East River. A long anticipated move to a brand-new facility in the Hunt's Point section of the Bronx has been stalled, most recently, by a wrangle in court over who will unload the market's fish. Ten years ago, under the Giuliani administration, in an attempt to route out organized crime from the fish market, an exclusive unloading contract was granted to Laro Services. Now, a consortium of market wholesalers, approved by the city's Business Integrity Commission, want to streamline their business and unload their own fish. Until a decision is reached in court about who will haul the fish New York City eats off of trucks and into the marketplace, Fulton Fish Market is staying put where it's always been: outside, a block from the South Street Seaport, a world unto itself. Will the market move? and what do the men who work there, between 1 and 7 a.m., think about heading up to the Bronx? During the hours when most of the time zone is sleeping, I talked with some of the men who work at the market. They shared their thoughts about fish, they explained their jobs and how the market works, and, of course, they thought out loud about what it will mean to take the whole show and put it on a different road.