Here's an unpopular opinion: I hate the Union Square Greenmarket. With a vengeance. It completely stresses me out. It brings together hordes of pushy, sanctimonious New Yorkers who'll gladly elbow you in the eye socket if you so much as dare to grab that leek before they do. Being a pushy, sanctimonious native New Yorker myself, you'd think I'd feel right at home there, but I just don't. I get all agoraphobic and irritable and start entertaining decidedly unchristian thoughts (more so than usual) about my fellow citizen. These thoughts usually involve sub-machine guns, bayonets and flame throwers.
Don't get me wrong -- I love the produce. I love the tomatoes and the bread and the greens and the fresh meats. I love the merchants -- good-natured, dedicated farmers who tirelessly drive into the city week in and week out from Upstate and Long Island and Pennsylvania. Hell, I even love Union Square itself -- it's the veritable gateway to downtown, if you will.
But it's the clientele that sets my teeth on edge, especially if I'm trying to navigate through them with a baby carriage. I've seen nicer, more considerate crowds at death metal shows. Slow-walking, self-styled culinary snobs and corpulent know-it-alls in Burbery raincoats and expensive sunglasses arguing with humble Pennsylvania Dutch farm-hands about the quality of their cucumbers. Mow them all down, I say!
My problem, however, is that my wife absolutely swears by the Greenmarket. She's loves it. Will not let a weekend go by without going there at least once. And being that I'm reaping the rewards from eating the meals she so lovingly prepares with the produce procured from same, I really don't have a leg to stand on in my arguments against it. But every time we go, she instantly notices the change in my mood (not that I'm ever exactly Captain Sunshine, but my inner Travis Bickle seems to rise quite visibly to the surface at the Greenmarket) and either rolls her eyes in "Oh for Christ's sake, get the hell over it" mode or sends me off to the Virgin Megastore across the Park until she's done (this is what happened this morning -- she got to go buy her cauliflower, and I got to go buy the newly re-mastered editions of the first two Pretenders albums -- everyone wins!) But at this point, I'm simply not allowed to stand around with her there, sneering and venting huffily about how I'd love to see the place get napalmed by Captain Kilgore's air cavalry in a fiery cataclysm while she's surveying the wheat grass selection.
And that's why I'm doing it here.
I was with you until "navigating baby carriage." If you are "navigating a baby carriage" in a crowd you deserve what you get. And I bet it's one of those big-ass carriages. Sheesh. Spare me .
Posted by: Geez Louise | October 16, 2006 at 03:56 PM
Yeah, once you are "navigating a baby carriage" through a crowded market, you have become what you have despised. Wife should have you and baby stand across the street, or better yet, stay home.
Posted by: Agreed Louise | October 16, 2006 at 04:01 PM
Jeeez, you big cry baby -Stay home.
Or take a drive to Pennsylvania to get your produce.
Posted by: VOG | October 16, 2006 at 04:20 PM
Gosh, yes, a problem of epic proportions, clearly. Have you thought getting there a bit earlier perhaps? Because I am so fucking cool, I am there by 9 AM on Saturdays when the crowd is much more manageable. You show up at 11:30-2:30 on Saturday and you roll the dice. Check your spelling too, man
Posted by: worst_1_yet | October 16, 2006 at 04:25 PM
No sympathy here, either, pram pusher.
Posted by: shalala | October 16, 2006 at 04:32 PM
Louise is a bitch (and will probably never need a baby carriage).
Posted by: hotjohnny | October 16, 2006 at 05:20 PM
Douchebags like JohnBarley fail to recognize that just about anything can reproduce if it chooses. Britney Spears, case in point.
Any idiot can push a stroller. Not needing push one through a crowded street market is actually admirable.
Posted by: Spawnless | October 16, 2006 at 05:50 PM
Newsflash, douchebag: your baby is the problem. Get your fucking stroller out of my face.
Posted by: native new yorker too | October 16, 2006 at 06:24 PM
Still angry at mom and dad, Native New Yorker Too?
Posted by: john barleycorn | October 16, 2006 at 06:35 PM
Wow, of all the crap I post here, never would have I expected that a fleeting rant about the Union Square Greenmarket would be the one that attracted the most ire. For the record, our stroller is acutally quite compact and streamlined (not a side-by-side'r), but that's beside the point.
In any case, I hated going to the Greenmarket well before the wife and I had even considered having kids, but that seems to be the sticking point with all the bile here. Suffice to say, you all need to get over it. Just because no one's bothered to entertain the notion of starting families with you, that doesn't mean the rest of the world is going to abstain. Maybe one day, if you change your minds and blight the world with children of your own, you'll change your tune. Or not. Whatever.
I still hate the greenmarket, and I don't take a single syllable back. So, get the hell out of my way, or I'll roll my stroller right over your precious Manolo Blahniks!
Posted by: Alex in NYC | October 16, 2006 at 08:42 PM
Better not park that stroller in front of me when I'm buying my $26 import CDs at Virgin either.
In "Common People" Jarvis sang "cos everyone hates a tourist.." I'd take a tourist over a stroller anyday.
Posted by: paulhw | October 16, 2006 at 09:12 PM
Good luck finding an import section at Virgin anymore, Paul.
Posted by: Alex in NYC | October 16, 2006 at 09:16 PM
Rude people and punishing crowds aren't the problem, Alex. It's babies. Come on, haven't you been paying attention? I avoid this place like the plague on the weekends for all of your reasons (and I don't even have kids), though I did go two weeks ago and saw porn legend Jamie Gillis among the riff raff. So worth it.
Posted by: jane | October 17, 2006 at 09:04 AM
You know why else the Greenmarket sucks? It's an evil empire! Farmers have to pay an arm and a leg to get in (half those people are sublets, basically), the quality isn't *that* great and they aren't chef friendly. Check out the threads on egullet.com. It's a hot mess.
Posted by: Tanya | October 17, 2006 at 02:07 PM
LOL. the breeders just don't get a break, do they?
Posted by: c-monster | September 26, 2007 at 12:07 PM
Alex in NY, well played
Posted by: Mike Addiego | November 09, 2012 at 01:17 PM
Wow, some people are so hostile toward children! They complain that people living in NYC now are contemptible because soon they will have kids and move to the suburbs, and then they complain when people have kids and *don't* move to the suburbs! Do they think native NYers are born as adults?
My theory is that they're still kids themselves, and are trying to separate themselves from their childhood.
Posted by: Horse Badorties | January 04, 2013 at 01:12 PM