The Malcolm Shabazz Harlem Market, a West 116th Street staple for more than three decades, has shut down its outdoor lot and shifted most of its familiar vendors into a nearby indoor space while the block is cleared for redevelopment. The shuffle, which set off a wave of “RIP to the market” posts online, is being framed by organizers as a temporary relocation so the bazaar can be rebuilt as a permanent, enclosed plaza tied to new affordable housing. Vendors are still open for business at the temporary site while organizers and city officials hammer out final financing and construction details.
Video clips and eyewitness accounts showed vendors breaking down booths and loading up merchandise when the lot closed, but sellers said they were moving, not folding. As CBS News New York reported, organizers have been telling customers the market “is not gone for good” and that vendors would be accommodated while the new project takes shape.
Where the market is now
Roughly 60 African and Caribbean vendors have been relocated to an indoor space around the corner, identified in local coverage as 121 Malcolm X Boulevard (Lenox Avenue). Inside, stalls are laid out in numbered booths, with room for some storage so sellers can get through the winter without battling the elements. The temporary market sits across the street from the old open-air lot at 52 West 116th Street and is meant to keep merchants in front of neighborhood foot traffic while construction moves ahead, according to The Curious Uptowner and city land-use records.
What’s being built
The stretch at 52–58 West 116th Street is slated to be transformed into Malcolm Shabazz Harlem Plaza, a two-tower, mixed-use development that would weave a renewed market arcade into the ground floor alongside roughly 108–109 affordable apartments. Land-use applications and related review documents filed with the City Council spell out how the city-owned parcels would be handed over and how dedicated market space would be preserved inside the new project, according to City Council land-use records and project design coverage from Passive House Accelerator.
Financing and schedule
Organizers say the financing side has passed a crucial checkpoint. Reporting indicates the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development closed on construction financing in mid-January, and project partners expect shovels in the ground sometime this year. The New York Amsterdam News reports that developers are bracing for a multi-year buildout before vendors can return to a permanent galleria space inside the new plaza.
Vendors and community reaction
Not everyone is reassured. Some vendors and nearby residents worry that a market that has already been shuffled around several times over the years could end up smaller or more expensive under pressure from new retail. A petition on Change.org raises alarms about rising rents and uncertain terms for small sellers once the development opens.
State Sen. Cordell Cleare, who toured the temporary indoor site, pushed back on some of the more breathless rumors swirling on social media. “You can't just do things for hits,” she told local reporters, according to neighborhood coverage.
Organizers counter that the interim space gives vendors heat, storage and continuity while construction is underway, and they stress that the market is slated to return to a ground-floor home once Malcolm Shabazz Harlem Plaza is complete. Longtime sellers say they are holding out hope that the rebuilt market keeps the same mix of trade, culture and street life that has defined the 116th Street corridor for decades.
