Lover of Antiques Finds a Wide-Open Field In Yorktown
Those who love antiques will often travel far and wide to find that special item they’ve been looking for, only to discover an unexpected treasure in the most unlikely of places.
Take the case of Ellen Gershman, who’s been in the antiques business, on and off, for a number of years. Gershman said she’d been scouting locations for an antiques flea market, and was thinking Yorktown would be a good place to search.
What happened next could only be described as one of life’s happy accidents.
“One morning [in early July], I got it in my head that I hadn’t looked in Yorktown Heights,” recalled Gershman. “A little while later, my friend across the street decided she wanted to go shopping at Turco’s [a specialty supermarket] in Yorktown Heights. So I decided I would do my good deed for the day, drive her to Turco’s, and go looking around while she was shopping.
“So I’m driving around,” she continued. “I see this open field. I drive into it. There’s somebody in a car there, talking to somebody. They were looking to rent out the space for a flea market. I couldn’t believe it! It was really an odd thing, the way it happened.”
Just about a month later, on Sunday, Aug. 5, Yorktown Flea will open for business and continue most every Sunday between now and the end of October in that open field: the Yorktown Heights Fire Department fairgrounds. The entrance is located on Veterans Road between VFW Post 8328 and Yorktown Animal Hospital.
“It’s a great location, right in a downtown area, surrounded by coffee shops and restaurants and all that kind of stuff,” said Gershman.
The hours of operation will be 8 a.m.-3 p.m., and the public will be admitted free.
“We’re having a special [price] for vendors for the first time, which is $10 [for a 20 by 20 space], because we’re trying to entice a few people over from other venues,” she said. The price per space will go up to $50 thereafter.
Asked what made her think of Yorktown for her venture, Gershman said: “Yorktown is a great little suburban town. It’s in upper Westchester. There’s nothing else really around [of this type] in Westchester County.”
Yorktown Flea will be open at the Yorktown Heights Fire Department fairgrounds, between 235 and 271 Veterans Road, Yorktown Heights, every Sunday from Aug. 5 through the end of October (except Sept. 2, Sept. 16 and Oct. 7, when the fairgrounds will be used for other purposes). For further information, call 917-881-6527, email elleng@yorktownflea.com, or visit the website at www.yorktownflea.com.
Adam has worked in the local news industry for the past two decades in Westchester County and the broader Hudson Valley. Read more from Adam’s author bio here.
