Everyone’s heard of the Garment District and the Financial District. But the Pickle District?
This was the name for the Lower East Side blocks centered on Essex Street, once home to 80 pickle merchants.
Some sold the briny street food from shops. Others worked out of pushcarts.
All mostly got their start in the years just before and after the turn of the 20th century, when Jewish immigrants packed the area and began selling a snack already beloved in the city.
“By 1659, Dutch farmers in New York grew cucumbers all over the area that is now known as Brooklyn,” states the New York Food Museum.
“These cucumbers were sold to dealers who cured them in barrels filled with varying flavored brines the pickles were sold in market stalls on Washington, Canal and Fulton Streets.”
Pickles are still popular, of course, but they’ve long available in supermarkets in jars. Today, only one merchant remains on Essex Street.
But the pickle gets a yearly shout-out on the Lower East Side during International Pickle Day every October.
Middle photo: Martha Cooper/Municipal Arts Society; bottom photo: NYPL Digital Collection
Tags: Essex Street Pickles, Guss Pickles, International Pickle Day, Lower East Side life, New York Street Food, NYC street vendors, Pickle District, Pickle Guys, Pickle Vendors, Pickles Lower East Side
Ephemeral New York 
June 11, 2012 at 9:01 am |
In the 1950s my mother always dragged me to Avenue C where the avenue was filled with pushcarts selling all kinds of goods from pickles and onions (you ever have a pickled onion? ugh! gross) to household items. I suppose the point was to socialize and talk about the old war destroyed country they came from. I still can remember old men haggling over some good they were trying to sell. Oh well, those days of pushcarts are gone forever, sadly…
June 11, 2012 at 10:02 am |
I forgot to mention I went to Seward Park HS on Essex St which was just a short block from the pickle sellers.
June 11, 2012 at 1:59 pm
Does this peddler look familiar? On Avenue C:
http://www.vintagephotos.com/Image%2060%20Pickle%20Lady.htm
June 11, 2012 at 2:12 pm
I was maybe 4 or 5 years old, impossible to remember. But a good pic of the time.
June 11, 2012 at 2:54 pm
Sewart Park H.S one of the best HS in the City, if not the best.
June 11, 2012 at 11:13 am |
To this day I still head to Essex Street for Pickles. No more Guss’s the place I used to ship, but there is another one, I think the last one in the area, that’s similiar. I can remember the old guy in the dead of winter grabbing pickles form the barrel on the outside. His hands were as white as the god driven snow. But……..That was then. I did hear that Guss’s opened a store on Orchard street. If anyone knows this kindly confirm.
June 11, 2012 at 2:17 pm |
I think Guss’ is still on Orchard Street. Haven’t been there in a while, though, to be sure. Also, don’t forget the movie, “Crossing Delancey,” where Amy Irving was set up by a traditional Jewish matchmaker with the pickle man, Peter Reigert.
June 11, 2012 at 2:52 pm |
I live in Gramercy, I’ll have to check Orchard street then. Thank you Beth.
June 11, 2012 at 3:17 pm |
Sorry but good ol’ Guss has moved to Brooklyn
http://ny.curbed.com/archives/2009/07/28/fall_of_the_lower_east_side_guss_pickles_moving_to_brooklyn.php
June 11, 2012 at 4:07 pm |
You’re right, Mick, you beat me to it. There is a Guss’ Pickles in Cedarhurst, NY and their pickles are being distributed to Whole Foods now.
June 11, 2012 at 4:26 pm
But if you go to the Essex Street market, above and below Delancey St, you might find pickle shops in there, but I don’t if it is still running as a market in the old sense of the word.
June 11, 2012 at 6:58 pm
Whoa Partners……..Not the same Guss’s as was on Essex Street. Check the spelling!
June 11, 2012 at 8:24 pm |
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