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NEW-YORK MARKETS NO. 2. 
NEW YORK MARKETS.—No. 2. 
In our March number, we took you with us 
upon a morning stroll through Fulton Market. 
We now propose to carry you to the other end 
of the same street, and give you a slight view 
of another great bazaar, where the products of 
many thousand farms are concentrated upon one 
point, by the power of wind and steam, which 
move great fleets of vessels and long trains of 
railroad cars, freighted with food to fill the 
mighty mass of moving life, that must be daily 
fed in this great city. 
Your first feeling upon viewing Washington 
Market will be disgust at the corporate author¬ 
ities of New York, for maintaining such an abom¬ 
ination—such a collection of old wooden sheds, 
as altogether go to make up, as you will sup¬ 
pose, a sort of temporary make-shift for a mar¬ 
ket house. Yet this make-shift policy has dis¬ 
graced the city upon this spot for a quarter of 
a century. The ground occupied by this market 
is much longer than that of Fulton, and the 
business transacted here, will be to you utterly 
inconceivable. Situated as it is upon the bank 
of the Hudson, it is the great receiving depot 
of that prolific inlet of farm produce to the 
markets of the city and the world. This, more 
than any other, is a wholesale mart of pro visions. 
Let us step on board of the market vessels in 
the adjoining dock. At least a dozen large 
schooners from Maine and New Hampshire, 
loaded entirely with northern potatoes, and 
nearly as many more from Delaware, Maryland, 
Virginia and North Carolina, with cargoes of 
sweet ones. Here are five sloop load's of turnips, 
and as many more of cabbages. Of apples, we 
might as well estimate the sands of the sea 
shore, as attempt an approximation towards the 
quantity of this fruit daily passing through this 
market, to say nothing of all the other avenues 
by which it enters into and is sold and resold, or 
consumed in this great fruit emporium. 
Besides all these sailing vessels, you will find 
all along the docks contiguous to this market, 
numerous steamboats and tow barges, fitted up 
expressly for the transportation of market pro¬ 
duce. Upon these you will count the carcasses 
of beef, mutton, pork, poultry, and game by the 
hundreds, butter and cheese by the ton. To give 
you some idea of the extent of trade in the former 
article, we will mention that a friend of ours, in the 
vicinity of Washington Market, whose business 
is that of wholesale grocer, and not generally 
engaged in the produce trade, informed us that 
the value of butter consigned to this house for 
sale, .would amount to $50,000 per annum. 
No description, however, which we can give, 
will convey an idea to the mind of one who has 
never visited the city, of the vastness of the 
quantity of food daily required to feed such a 
multitude as constantly dwell at this great point 
of concentration, and that are coming to or go¬ 
ing from it to all parts of the world. 
Immense quantities of property at this season 
are liable to destruction from frost. Here may 
be seen a thousand wagon loads of potatoes, 
turnips, carrots, beets, onions, cabbage, and other 
perishable vegetables, lying upon a few boards 
on the ground under open sheds, without any 
possible protection to prevent freezing. Upon 
the wharves, and all around and under the mar¬ 
ket house, and on the pavements, in front of pro¬ 
duce stores, there are hundreds of barrels of 
apples, also liable to be frozen in a single night, 
upon a change of temperature as sudden and 
severe as often occurs in this climate, before 
they could be removed to a place of safety. 
The crowded condition of this market renders 
its want of neatness more apparent—its want of 
almost every convenience, comfort, and capa¬ 
bility, has been so long apparent to all who are 
acquainted with it, they have ceased to wonder 
at, or be disgusted with its miserable appearance. 
Situated as it is, with a broad front upon the 
river, what an ornamental, as well as useful, 
monument of city pride might be reared here. 
The basement story should be made cool and 
dry in summer, and proof against frost in win¬ 
ter. This should be the vegetable and fruit 
market upon the sides of the building; the 
rooms under the center being dark would be 
used as store houses, for anything requiring an 
even temperature, such as buttter, lard, fruit, or 
vegetables. The first floor should be wholly 
occupied for meats and their kindred substances, 
upon roomy stalls, with broad aisles and rail¬ 
road tracks between. This room should be the 
perfection of neatness—fitted with marble tables 
and Croton water; windows, and doors, wire- 
screened to admit air and keep out flies ; lighted 
with gas, and kept open for evening sales—the 
only time laborers can find leisure to attend— 
and in all things made a place of attraction, in¬ 
stead of loathing and disgust. 
But the second floor should be the greatest 
scene of interest. Here, in a hall of 150 feet 
wide and 300 feet long, should be sold all the 
innumerable small articles of traffic and fine 
fruits, and flowers and bijouterie of the vege¬ 
table world. 
The floral hall should be made a place of 
great attraction} by the ornaments of art as 
