New York Times Sunday Magazine on Washington Market

For his The New York Times Sunday Magazine of November 25, 1945, detailing the journey of produce from field to the retailer, Charles Grutzner visited the Washington Market where, he reported, the volume of produce being handled had picked up since the war's end but had not reached prewar levels.

“At 2 o'clock,” he wrote “confusion gave way to chaos. Everything started jumping, including the traffic cop at Duane Street, who dodged a hundred deaths.” Delivery trucks trying to pull out tangled with the buyers trucks looking to park. A “drunken man fell in front of a truck, a handcart spilled its tomato crates, two of which burst open, daubing the street with a red mash, and an old lady plodded through the maelstrom, peddling candies and tobacco.” At one stall a salesman fretted because a delivery of string beans had not arrived and he had already sold them to early buyers, much of them on tie-in orders with other produce; the entire orders were in jeopardy of being canceled if the truck did not show up soon.

Much of the produce already was purchased before the buyers rolled in their trucks at 2 AM. The commission houses and jobbers sold to the wholesalers and occasionally directly to retailers. The bigger buyers came first, buying on memo, while the smaller buyers came later, haggling over price and often paying cash. Some of the commission houses were through for the day by dawn and had put up their shutters. Meanwhile auction sales continued where by tradition bidders shouted their offers in shillings. The wholesalers then either delivered the produce to their retail customers or to their own shops where retailers came by to pick up their orders. By 7 AM, when New Jersey commuters from the Erie Railroad ferries began to pick their way through the debris making their way to the subway, only a few stragglers were still conducting business.