COME FLEA WITH ME
(WITH APOLOGIES TO SINATRA)
Photos by Julie Weissman
BY SUSAN BARTELSTONE
If you’re like me, you love
spending the day shopping
for bargains, sampling different
kinds of food and exploring
new neighborhoods. I did all that
when I went to the LIC Flea &
Food on a recent Sunday afternoon.
Accompanying me were
Julie Weissman, Stuart Kocker and
Eneas Arkawy and we arranged
to meet NST Courier Publisher
and co-owner of the Flea, Vicki
Schneps-Yunis, there to show us
around.
Even with close to 80 vendors
on any given day, the Flea wasn’t
so big you got exhausted walking
around and wasn’t intimidating.
Browsing at a leisurely pace, we
saw all the stalls, which featured
small furniture items, artworks,
jewelry and accessories, vintage
and custom clothing, arts and crafts
items and even a Subaru tent with a
new model car. Stuart and I bought
cute T-shirts with a Queens logo
and Eneas found a pretty Bakelite
ring. Be ready to bargain if you see
something you want… the vendors
expect it!
Like to kayak? There’s a waterfront
park behind the Flea on the
Eleventh Street Basin, where you
can rent a kayak and all the necessary
equipment or just sit on shady
benches and look at the awesome
skyline view of NYC.
A real highlight for me was the
food stalls, which line the perimeter
of the Flea. You can snack your way
around the world on a wide variety
of ethnic food: Baked goods,
Asian pancakes and kabobs, crepes,
quesadillas, Jamaican jerk chicken,
unusual types of burgers, raw and
cooked oysters, gourmet pickles,
gourmet barbequed items, gourmet
lemonade and lots more. Quite a
few breweries are housed in Queens
and the Flea offers selections from
many of them. Cold beer on a hot
day to accompany yummy food…
perfect! There’s even an area with
tables, where you can eat, look at
the view and listen to lively music.
For a change of pace, we stopped
in at the LIC Artists Collective, a
large gallery directly adjacent to the
Flea. Local Queens artists exhibit
there and it was well worth a
look-see.
Colorful creations
After we finished shopping and
snacking, it was time to go exploring.
A low-rent artists’ haven for
decades, LIC is now a gentrifying
neighborhood with luxury high-rises
and upscale waterfront restaurants,
nestled next to warehouses,
2017
rundown industrial buildings and
September modest homes. The Flea vendors
were so friendly and gave us
excellent suggestions for places to
eat, museums, cultural attractions
and parks with scenic views. Our
¢exploring worked up our appetites
COURIER again and we decided on an Italian
restaurant for dinner, Manducatis
Rustica (46-33 Vernon Blvd., Long
TOWERS Island City, (718) 937-1312, www.
manducatisrustica.com), which
offered small, “baby-slice” pizzas
SHORE NORTH Or give them a call at 718-224-5863. 6 and light salads, in addition to more
traditional Italian fare.
All in all, we had a grand adventure
(thanks, Vicki!) and we’re
planning another “Flea-and-see
day” very soon.
Susan Bartelstone is an
Advocacy Initiatives Consultant
and Crime Prevention Specialist
with thousands of articles, posts
and podcasts bearing her byline.
Her signature topics are domestic
violence, elder abuse and crime
prevention. However, in another
of her incarnations, she’s a lifestyle
and restaurant reviewer for
advertorials, which appear periodically
in the New York Daily
News.
The “Flea” Marketeers (l. to r.) Co-owner LIC Flea & Food and
Publisher NST Courier Vicki Schneps, Susan Bartelstone and Eneas
Arkawy
Prints, charming!
Shopping with a view
The LIC Flea & Food is located at 5-25 46th Ave., Long Island City, and is open every Saturday
and Sunday (rain or shine) from 11 a.m.–6 p.m. Periodically, they hold special events, like food
exhibitions, wine and beer festivals, and concerts, so check out their website (www.licflea.com)
and sign up for the newsletter to get updates and ticket information.
