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Business & Tech

Brooklyn Flea Beckons Holiday Shoppers

Market entices shoppers to give -- to themselves as well as others.

Holiday shoppers, browse the Gifted market at your peril. Without strict focus on the giving nature of the season, you might exit the flea with more for yourself than your loved ones.

The Brooklyn Flea's holiday market, Gifted, opened Wednesday at Skylight One Hanson (One Hanson Place) and runs from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. daily through Dec. 23. More than 100 vendors dazzle shoppers with gifts galore, some wares unique to the holiday market and some common to the year-round, weekend flea.

Although Gifted is the third annual holiday market for the Flea, this is the first time it is housed in the former bank space at Hanson Place. The inaugural holiday market in 2008 was held at the Masonic Temple in Fort Greene, while in 2009 it crossed the East River to occupy the former Tower Records Annex in Noho.

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This year, however, Flea co-founder Eric Demby was keen to make room for more of the Flea's regular vendors and return to Brooklyn, "which really is our core," he wrote in an email. "Plus it's hard to pass up doing a holiday market in that amazing bank space."

Browsers examined the wares on three floors Wednesday evening. Nicole Miller, a Prospect Heights resident who stopped by on her way home from work in Manhattan, said she only noticed the market by chance after exiting the subway.

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"I'm so excited this is here," she said. "I haven't even started Christmas shopping yet but I feel like I could get everything done right here."

Miller, 31, ran her hand over the batik-print comforters rolled invitingly on a mezzanine-level bed. Sheepishly, she admitted she wasn't considering them as a gift. Not for someone else, anyway.

"I like these for me," she said, laughing. "I guess I better keep moving."

Carmela Ricciardelli, a vendor commuting to the market daily from New Haven, Conn., said the first day was busiest in the early to mid-afternoon. Some people had been "very excited" about the market, she said, which created a different vibe from the weekend flea, where she has sold her vintage, recycled jewelry, typewriter-key cufflinks and "steampunk" necklaces for two years.

"I like making something new from old," Ricciardelli said of her chunky, watch-piece jewelry, on sale at a special holiday rate of $30. The usual price is between $45 and $75, she said.

Near the entrance, boothmates Lon Black, seller of New York City-related "vintage postcards and ephemera," and David Sokosh, purveyor of artwork, clocks, watches and all-round antique aesthetic, said they had observed quite a few couples browsing together throughout the day - not quite shopping yet, Sokosh said, but hinting.

"Someone will point at something and say, 'Oh, that looks nice,' or, 'I like that'," he said. "People are still figuring out their holiday shopping."

Sokosh, a living embodiment of the "vintage lifestyle," started making antique-looking watches a few years ago from parts mostly sourced on eBay. Prices range from $400 to $1,200.

He flicked open a gold pocket watch from his woolen waistcoat to display the visible mechanics.

"For many years I've been based in the early 20th-century moment," he said. "To our eye it seems old-fashioned but you can see the early beginnings of what is happening now, so I'm really drawn to that design style."

While vintage items are heavily represented at the market, there are many other types of likely gifts, from baby clothing and Christmas ornaments to decorative cushions and ceramics. Food vendors are also stationed on the ground and lower floors for shoppers in need of refueling.

Entrance to the market is free.

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