Spurred By Organic Food Providers, Southeast Queens Grows A Night Market
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Earnest Food, an organic produce provider, was one of 34 vendors at Sunday's night market at St. Albans Park.
Elizabeth Kim / Gothamist
In New York City, night markets are synonymous with Queens. In 2015, a former lawyer named John Wang founded the seasonal Queens Night Market in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, which has served more than one million people with affordable street food from 80 different countries. That market recently made a triumphant return to the borough for the first time since the pandemic began.
But Wang has said that night markets are more than just about food—they are a "vehicle and gateway" for culture. Now, a group is taking that loose definition and trying to make their own version in southeast Queens, in a neighborhood that represents the heart of the city's Black middle class.