I’ve
written here about my boyhood adventures in the seventies at the Englishtown
Flea Market, an incredible outdoor bazaar where I found toys galore, comic-books, and
issues of Starlog Magazine.
Another
incredible market of my childhood was the U.S. Route #1 Indoor Flea-Market in
New Brunswick, New Jersey…which is now a Loew’s multiplex.
You
may have some passing familiarity with U.S. #1 if you watched Kevin Smith’s
Mallrats (1995). That comedy film featured a scene set at the famous “dirt mall.”
Alas,
by 1996, the market was gone.
However, U.S. #1, near Edison -- in its hey-day -- was another incredible flea market. The market was housed in a 175,000 square foot building, and more than 100 merchants operated there every weekend.
You could find anything imaginable at U.S. #1 in those days, from fresh
produce dealers and cast-off military items, to a jeweler who traveled to Jersey
every weekend from Philadelphia. My family would typically visit U.S. #1 on the
way home from Englishtown, but on some Saturdays, it was the main event.
I
loved U.S. #1 for two reasons.
First, there was an amazing, extremely crowded booth there that served as an
ad-hoc used book-store, and featured great film and TV books. I have owned three or four copies of Gary
Gerani’s Fantastic Television (1977) over the decades, but if memory
serves, I found my first copy at U.S. #1.
It was a great day. I remember
reading avidly on the trip home from the market, my eyes never wandering from
the book's pages.
One
Saturday at U.S. #1 market, I also came across another item I’ve never
forgotten: a Space:1999 book that I didn’t even know existed at the time.
The book -- Phoenix of Megaron -- was
designed and colored in red instead of blue like the rest of the novel line,
and discovering it there, at U.S. #1 -- in a large bin --- was like finding a
lost treasure, or something from an alternate universe.
Secondly,
I loved U.S. #1 because was also a great comic-book dealer there, and I remember, in
particular, catching up with issues of Marvel’s Battlestar Galactica
comic series. In particular, I was trying to
fill out my collection (and get one missing issue involving “The Memory
Machine.”)
By
the mid-1980s, I guess we stopped going to U.S. #1, which is a shame, because I
understand that it displayed a De Lorean there, like the one in the Back to the
Future movies, for a time.
I was sad to
learn, in preparing this memory bank post that it isn’t there anymore...just another piece of childhood that exists now
only in the memory.
I grew up right across the street from the Flea Market.I used to go there every single Friday, Saturday and Sunday and spend the whole weekend talking to the owners of the comic shop there. There were 3, actually, Titan's Tower, Quality Comics and this little news stand in the back of the market that sold the comics 10 for $1!
ReplyDelete20 years after US1 closed its doors, I found myself nostalgic for those weekends and trying to find a picture of the market. My mother had a hat/cap/scarf store and I'd spend my time at the arcade center, buying videos, collecting pogs and visiting various merchants who I felt were older brothers, sisters, aunts & uncles. Thanks for the picture, I miss that sign!
ReplyDelete20 years after US1 closed its doors, I find myself suddenly nostalgic for my time there, searching for photos of this place on the internet. My mother had a hat/cap/scarf store there and I'd spend my time at the arcades center, purchasing pogs, buying videos, visiting shop-neighbors. My sister and I used to get excited for donuts dipped in coffee in the mornings and baked potatoes for lunch. 'Twas a great place to spend time and explore. Thanks for posting the picture!
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