Night Market Spills Beyond Its Borders

The Town Green District’s New Haven Night Market once again drew throngs of people, as the event closed the intersection of Orange and Crown and its surrounding streets to car traffic, turning those city blocks into a bustling bazaar of food, art, and crafts. But there was also evidence that the event was expanding more informally, as artists and businesses beyond those blocks threw events to attract their own parts of the crowd.

As on previous nights, the New Haven Night Market was filled with dozens of stalls, with artisans selling everything from soap to jewelry to artwork to clothing. A full roster of music performances, from jazz to soul to sounds from around the world, kept people lingering at the corner of Crown and Orange from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. while others surged around them. 

Between the row of food and drink vendors set up in booths and in food trucks — from Skappo, Geronimo, and Barcade to Edible Couture, Try This Pie, and Chef Sil’s Vegan kitchen — and the indoor and outdoor seating available from the brick-and-mortar restaurants lining the closed blocks, people in the crowd had a wide variety of options to choose from, for refreshments and libations.

Among the many vendors were the cheerfully macabre folks at Queerly Departed, who, as their mission statement declares, are ​“a small team of 3 indie, neuro divergent queers just getting by, making merchandise for other queers out of New Haven, CT. Their emphasis can be summarized with the phrase: Rustic Halloween Queer. Outside of that, their interests and merchandise focus on Witchy, occult, plant & pet parenthood, vintage Halloween art with added fat, sex, and neurodiversity positivism.”

On hand were two of the trio, head ghouls and artists Andy Mincey and Mortimer Darcy, selling pins, patches, stickers, original art, and other products aimed at catching the eye and making a statement.

“We’re all artists so we wanted to make things that we don’t see, but we want,” said Mincey. ​“The name came later” — in part because ​“I know a lot of people who are death workers, and so knowing some of the stuff you see on headstones, I thought ​‘queerly departed’ was perfect.”

Mincey, Darcy, and the third business partner, Jack Walters, all met in New Haven and ​“we wanted to be creative,” Darcy said. ​“We just kind of took what we all make and are naturally inclined to. We do some collabs, but I could tell you who makes which thing.” A viewer could be forgiven for believing that everything is a collaboration, given the way the pieces feel of a whole. ​“Our styles all work together,” Darcy said. 

Right next door to Queerly Departed was the East Haven-based Slackline Press, run by Lourdes Irizarry and Nate McKenzie, who were selling products as well as letting people try their hand at a small letterpress right on the spot. Slackline was founded in 2013, taking its name from rock-climbing terminology; Irizarry explained that both are avid climbers. Irizarry is a graphic designer by trade and works mostly in technique. 

“This is a creative outlet,” she said. ​“I design stuff on pen and paper, and then transfer it to computer and have a plate made out of it, and then I print that at home in my garage.” Slackline makes cards and prints as well as labels for soaps, candles, and matches. ​“It involves the computer, but it’s a way to get off the computer and do a manual process. It’s nice to get off the screen for a while.”

She assumed that printmaking would be a more difficult field to get into than it turned out to be. ​“Anyone can do it,” she said. ​“I wanted a letterpress for my cards, and we started poking around, and discovered that there are small communities, all over the country, trying to keep letterpress alive.” The machines are sold through these communities online; some people even ​“discover them in their basement and don’t know what it is.” Slackline has bought a few letterpresses from a seller in Massachusetts. ​“You can find them if you’re looking for them,” Irizarry said. Some presses fit on a tabletop; ​“you don’t have to have a huge setup to do it.”

Printmaking appeals to Irizarry because ​“there’s just something about getting your hands dirty,” she said. ​“Also you’re working on an antique,” over 100 years old. ​“They’re not even made anymore, and there’s really something special about that.”

The large crowds and buzzing energy of the Night Market marks a dramatic change from the On9 events of the past, which drew more uneven crowds. Simple as it sounds, one key difference between attracting a trickle of people and gathering a throng of them seems to be closing the streets to car traffic, a more permanent fixture of the stretch of Orange Street just north of Crown, to provide the restaurants there with outdoor pandemic-era seating. The obvious difference in turnout is enough to make certain reporters wonder how large the event might grow to be if even more streets were closed — especially as other spaces are already throwing their own events alongside the Night Market, already expanding the market beyond its official borders.

Just a little farther up Orange Street, in the vacant storefront that used to be the Reynolds Gallery, three artists — Noe Jimenez, Ruby Gonzalez, and Bobby Murphy — had set up a pop-up art show entitled ​“Fraud.” Among the three of them, they had more than enough pieces ready to fill the space, and as Gonzalez and Murphy looked on, the show received a steady stream of curious visitors who lingered to check out their engaging pieces.

“I ran into Noe Jimenez and Bobby Murphy and they said, ​‘we’re going to do a show — you should come! It was very rag-tag, very DIY, very spur of the moment. I said, ​‘why not?’ ” said Gonzalez, who also has pieces currently hanging in Artspace. The artists connected with Ben Berkowitz of SeeClickFix to make the show happen in the space. The show was set up for Friday evening only; later in the year, according to Murphy, it’s possible the storefront will be rented and turned into a skate shop.

Farther north on Orange Street, the lifestyle store Strange Ways had set up its first live event in its new location in Pitkin Plaza — a ​“patch up party” in collaboration with Witch Bitch Thrift, a Bridgeport-based thrift and witch-supply shop.

Witch Bitch Thrift opened in the fall of 2020 and ​“we really found that the online store helped us blossom,” said Eva Ray, the store’s chief operations officer. ​“We’ve just kind of taken off since then.” After a TikTok video they made ​“blew up,” she continued, ​“we started getting thousands of followers. We’ve really enjoyed creating a community” using various online platforms, including Discord and Patreon. ​“We’ve sold to every state and internationally,” she added, but ​“really we just like to talk and connect. That’s our favorite part of our business, that people like to come here. They feel comfortable.”

Witch Bitch Thrift connected with Strange Ways over a year ago, as businesses interested in the same things. On Friday, they set up a pop-up shop in Strange Ways, offering a selection of thrifted clothes and tarot readings. The idea was to buy an article of clothing from Witch Bitch, then select patches from either Witch Bitch or Strange Ways that could be ironed up using a heat press before leaving the store.

At the heat press was none other Jack Walters of Queerly Departed, who expertly handled placing patches on articles of clothing as well as running the press itself.

“One of the huge opportunities of getting the store downtown was that half of it could be studio space,” said Strange Ways owner Alex Dakoulas, of moving downtown from Westville. ​“It’s my office, it’s our studio for shooting products. We have heat presses now, and we’ve always wanted to host artist pop-up tables. That’s how Strange Ways started.” 

Friday’s event — noting the theme of Friday the 13th — was designed to coincide with the Night Market. The heat press, however, will become a regular feature of the store, so that customers can get the patches they buy at Strange Ways ironed or sewed onto their clothes. Dakoulas is considering a station to let people modify their clothes in other ways, such as adding grommets. ​“Strange Ways is about expressing yourself, so now we can help you with that,” he said.

This weekend also kicked off Strange Saturdays at the store. ​“Every Saturday, going forward forever, I want to be able to have artists popping up from two to six at our store, and build community” Dakoulas said. ​“A lot of people will show off what they’re making. It gives people a reason to stop by the store. It gives people a chance to do their first in-person event. We’re open to offering it to anyone who has something worth showing, or selling, or talking about. I want it to be makers, but we’re also doing a moped event at the end of the month” with e‑moped and e‑bike manufacturer Spark Cycleworks in Branford. Other events will featuring artists and graphic designers. 

“Saturdays are usually our busiest day,” he added. But if the Night Market continues to expand, maybe one Friday a month could be, too.