Union Square Holiday Market — Attraction in New York

One of the vendors, Stephen Francis Duffy, was extremely rude to me when I tried to ask him questions about his etchings. He would not look me in the eye and when he did answer (without looking up) he did so with unhelpful one-word answers. He had been chatting for a long time with a couple before me, and I had patiently waited for him to finish. He was super friendly with them so I was shocked that when I asked him questions, he completely changed his demeanor. I was asking because I wanted to buy a few of his prints. (To give context: the other customers were white and I am an Asian American woman.) He finally glared at me unsmilingly and said, “I don’t normally say this but you’re allowed a limit of three questions.” No one else was around but he claimed he was “busy.” I asked him why he had been so nice to the previous customers, and he told me it was because they had bought $500 worth of prints from him. I walked away and asked another vendor to help me find the manager of the market. I told her (Mackenzie,) what had happened. She agreed to speak to him in front of me, and, as expected, he denied to her that he had been rude. He then started joking sarcastically that I had been asking him questions like “What’s the color of your coat?” I told him the encounter with him had been upsetting, and he cracked, “Oh, yeah, I’m sure it was really upsetting.” I told Mackenzie I didn’t think it was funny that he was being sarcastic (she claimed that “not everyone gets his dry wit”). She then said she would talk to him separately later and agreed to get back to me. I never heard back from her. I later told a friend of mine about the incident, and he told me he had been completely ignored by a wine vendor there a few years ago (he’s Black) and he refuses to go to that...

it’s a the holiday season, so don’t be a BRAT but do enjoy a BRATWURST at the German Bratwurst stand at the Union Square Holiday Market. the Union Square Holiday Market is an annual event for me to shop at a bunch of local merchants and eat some delicious eats from different restaurants, pop-ups, food trucks, etc. from across the city. the Holiday Market runs from late October to Jan 2, each year. this review is about German food stand on the east side of the Holiday Market.

you can smell the German sausages as savory scents waft through the air. there’s a large bbq grill with a variety of German sausages sizzling (brats, bauernwurst, currywurst, etc) as well as German pretzels warming on the side. ordered a Bratwurst—it comes in a roll, topped with sauerkraut and mustard. you can get ketchup (but don’t bc that is sacrilege! lol). the brat’ in a warm roll was so good and hit the spot as an on-the-go meal. the bratwurst is meaty, full of flavor, and good-sized serving. the roll is warm, but is a hard roll…so it has the right amount of chew and is not too soft. sauerkraut and mustard add a nice layer of flavor of sour, sweet, and tart-and-tangy. this is a must-eat for carnivores. the bratwurst is $8 + tax + tip. the brat is filling but leaves enough room to pick up other eats from other stands. tour the world’s foods from Union Square.

the staff is friendly and keep the...

The area around present-day Union Square was initially farmland. The western part of the site was owned by Elias Brevoort, who later sold his land to John Smith in 1762; by 1788 it had been sold again to Henry Spingler. On the eastern part of the land were farms owned by John Watts and Cornelius Williams. The northwestern corner of the park site contained 0.40 ha of land owned by the Manhattan Bank, which supposedly was a "refuge" for businesses during New York City's yellow fever epidemics. When John Randel was surveying the island in preparation for the Commissioners' Plan of 1811, the Bloomingdale Road (now Broadway) angled away from the Bowery at an acute angle. Because it would have been difficult to develop buildings upon this angle, the Commissioners decided to form a square at the union. In 1815, by act of the state legislature, this former potter's field became a public commons for the city, at first named Union Place. Union Place originally was supposed to extend from 10th to 17th Streets. Several city officials objected that Union Place was too large and requested that it be "discontinued", and in 1814, the New York State Legislature acted to downsize the area by making 14th Street the...