Bridgemarket has been one of New York City’s best kept secrets, a cathedral-like space beneath the Queensboro Bridge adorned with a canopy of Rafael Guastavino tile vaults. The final design resulted from dialogue between Hugh Hardy and Terence Conran, who introduced a modernist sensibility. Originally designed to evoke 19th-century European marketplace structures, the shop’s glass-and-steel pavilion is now a modernist foil to the massive bridge.
Bridgemarket received its name after serving as a farmer’s market in the early 1900s until the 1930s, when it became a New York City Department of Transportation facility. The new Bridgemarket includes Guastavino’s restaurant, the Terence Conran Shop, a flagship Food Emporium, and a public plaza designed by Lynden Miller, who is well known for her work at Bryant and Battery Parks. Bridgemarket has been described as a catalyst for renewal of this East Side neighborhood and reclaims for use one of New York City’s great civic spaces.