Market value

Image: "New York in the Nineteenth Century—321 Engravings from Harper's Weekly and Other Contemporary Sources" / John Grafton / Dover Publications

If you’ve never wondered what that eyesore on Essex Street between Delancey and Rivington is, you’re not alone. It’s the Essex Street Market (120 Essex St between Delancey and Rivington Sts, 212-388-0449), one of three remaining city-owned public markets and perhaps the most overlooked cultural landmark in Manhattan. Mayor Fiorello La Guardia built the space in 1939 to contain pushcart vendors that were clogging the streets. Over the years, it fell into disrepair, and in 1995 the market received a $1.5 million renovation. In the past few months, the 30-vendor space has garnered unprecedented attention for its new gourmet cheese tenants—Essex St. Cheese Co., Saxelby Cheesemongers and Formaggio Essex—but to truly understand the allure of the space, you need to meet the veterans.

The butcher–gallery owner

At first glance, with his wiry physique, puffy, ponytailed hair and pale eyes, 50-year-old Jeffrey Ruhalter looks more like a peacenik than a man who hacks meat for a living. But flesh is in his blood: The Ruhalter family has maintained a butcher shop inside the Market ever since it opened.

When the store was passed down to him two years ago, Ruhalter changed the name to Jeffrey’s Meats (212-475-6521) and updated the offerings to fit the changing clientele. “I went from a butcher who sold pig’s feet and neck bones to a butcher that sells filet mignon, porterhouse steaks, venison, ostrich and wild boar.” Today he offers more than 100 cuts of meat and about two dozen different animals and, like an old-time street vendor, can rattle them off at breakneck speed (“elk, antelope, alligator, buffalo, emu...”).

But he’s not just the neighborhood meat man. This corner stall is also home to the “Who Fucked Up the Order” emergency meat-supply company for restaurants, as well as the Jeffrey Center for Community Arts (a wall behind the meat display case where local artwork hangs). “We’re New York’s best-kept secret,” he says with conviction. “If people knew about us, we’d be jam-packed.”

The fishmonger–bakers

Like many people in the market, Ira Stolzenberg, 57, works in the family business: His father owned Heshy’s Fish Market on Avenue C and 6th Street for 52 years. Stolzenberg has been running Rainbo’s Fish (212-982-8585) with his partner, Ron Budinas, since 1977. They started by selling head fish, like whiting and porgies, to blacks and Hispanics, and whitefish and pike to Jews. When the older customers started to die off ten years ago, Budinas replaced the carp tank with a juice bar.

“That juice bar is what started bringing Caucasians into the market,” says Stolzenberg. “Until a few weeks ago, there was a line: Half the market was Caucasian, half Spanish. Saxelby Cheese wandered into Dominican territory.”

Budinas, 56, has more or less defected from his fishmonger duties at Rainbo’s to manage what is now called the Tra La La juice bar and bakery. In a tight corner of the fish stall, he bakes about 500 muffins a week in a tiny convection oven. Stolzenberg, once an art student, followed his partner’s lead and opened Rainbo’s AND..., a studio where he sculpts elaborate, often perverse fondant decorations for the cakes that Budinas bakes. Customers can see several examples on display, including a depiction of an orgy and a plate of spaghetti and meatballs.

There’s something for everyone, but many locals still don’t know the place exists. “People who’ve lived here for years, they think it’s a parking lot,” says Stolzenberg, before moving on to help a regular.

The winemaker-relic

Norman Schapiro, 69, is the third-generation owner of Schapiro’s Wine (212-832-3176) and the grandson of Sam Schapiro, who opened the country’s first kosher winery on Attorney Street in 1899. The business moved to Rivington Street in 1906, and the properties stayed in the family until Norman Schapiro—who says he received two of the buildings as bar mitzvah gifts—finally sold them in 2003. “I was the most spoiled kid I ever saw,” he recalls.

Though his wine is now made upstate in Monticello, Schapiro opened a stall in the Essex Market in 2001 to fulfill the needs of nostalgic types clamoring for the winery’s return to the Lower East Side. He’s there a few hours each day, sitting in a folding chair, his eye level just clearing a counter lined with wine bottles and plastic sampling cups.

The product itself is a relic—a syrupy Concord grape wine associated largely with Jewish holidays. The slogan? “Wine so thick you can cut it with a knife.”

One man wearing shades strolls past and shouts, “Hey, boss!” over his shoulder. “They come to buy wine, you see that?” says Schapiro. Then, as if channeling his inner spoiled child, he stamps his foot and exclaims, “I love Schapiro Wine, and I want it to go on forever!”