Franklin Flea: the good/bad/etc, "some New York thing"

Today we hit the hot new flea market in town, the Franklin Flea, which has filled the "hip flea market" hole that "sneered" at Brooklyn Flea* left.  I have a couple mixed feelings about it, but generally I'd say to try it out.

The good: it's in the old Strawbridges.  So it's a pretty, old, fancy department store, with a few fixtures (like giant chandeliers) in tact and in use.  There's lots of well curated stuff (furniture, housewares, clothes) and a good mix of vintage and handmade.  For instance, I got this "80's Aztec Babydoll dress", which I think fits into my new "wacky art teacher" wardrobe pretty well.

I also got these sour cream glasses which are kind of my holy grail of finds (Philadelphia '76 bicentennial glasses).

Which brings me to the (kind of) bad. Prices were spot on.  Like, not outrageously high or anything, but like exactly market value.  No deals.
The other bad news is that it's still a little small.  Hopefully they'll keep growing and take over some more of Strawbridges, and it'll be a spot you might want to spend a couple hours at.

In any case, worth checking out.


*this whole idea is funny, how people basically boycotted the Brooklyn Flea when it was at the Piazza just because it had the word "Brooklyn" in it.  This article in Philly Magazine is great (in a way), especially because of the one quote:  "I refuse to support anything in Philadelphia that has some New York thing in it's name."