One of these days I’m going to force myself to make it over to that flea market at 15th and Mission next to the Kink Armory. San Franciscans seem to love waiting in lines, be it for allegedly killer sandwiches, hip new restaurants, or bathrooms at Dolores Park.
I wanted to check it out Thursday morning, but that robust line managed to dissuade my desire while also calling into question my San Francisco-ness. Obviously there must be some great deals to be found there besides stolen bicycle frames (oh wait that’s the Laney College Flea Market).
Have any of you dear readers ever braved the line? What’s the coolest thing you’ve managed to find?
pretty sure that’s a line for free food distribution or some other social service, and not the flea market, which traffics mostly in toothpaste and deodorant. i’ve been, it’s like an outdoor dollar store.
Yep, it’s some kind of weekly food distribution that they run out of Arriba Juntos (the social service center next door to the Armory) that brings the big lines. It generally happens every Thursday, and the line is almost exclusively older Asian folks. I think they give out boxes of produce, but I could be wrong.
They do some kind of flea market back there too on certain days, but I’ve never seen it get quite as big as the food distribution.
Yeah, the flea market is not that awesome. It really is basically just an outdoor dollar store. That’s a great description. I live next door, so I wander through on occasion, but it’s nothing special, really. The more interesting stuff is the rogue dudes on the sidewalk who hawk their random bullshit. The cops usually shut them down by 11 or so (and then half of them return 30 minutes later), but on a nice sunny day, there will easily be like 30 or 40 of them. I’ve found some fun stuff there.
Baskets full of the bike seats you will lose if you leave your bike locked up with it on.
Tables full of stolen DVD’s from Border’s with the store security cases still on.
Basically buying anything there means you’re unethical and probably have bad taste.
wow it’s so nise,,, photoshop mission