Photos are up over at Flickr. Not a lot of them. But still–such pretty, pretty fish. Even if the setting is now totally dull and industrial–no Brooklyn Bridge twinkling in the night. Perhaps saddest of all, there’s no bar nearby to warm up in before the big shop, as we did in 2005. We loaded up on shellfish for our Election Day Cafe oyster roast.

FYI, here’s the deal with visiting the market: You meander all over the South Bronx, but you know you’re getting warm when most of the traffic is large trucks. You pay something like $6 per car at the entry toll booth. You hang onto your little receipt, because when you finally park, you’ll need to give it to some guy who looks like he’s doing nothing, but is actually somehow in charge of keeping track of the civilians parked in the lot.

You enter the building at any of the pedestrian entrances–there’s one at each major bay. You definitely do not enter through a non-pedestrian entrance, or you will be flattened by a mini-forklift. The fast, erratic and nearly silent traffic can be alarming (especially if you happen to be blind in one eye).

The hall is long and wide, with each vendor occupying a large-ish stall. The scene is not particularly bustling, at least not at 3am on a Tuesday morning. It’s unclear why or where all the forklifts are going. You should not bother eating at the on-site “cafe”–it is basically no improvement over the food cart at the old market, which sold steamed chicken sandwiches in bags. You may, however, want to peek in there to see if there are any “regulars” at the tables–there were some genuine non-market-affiliated kooks in there when we visited.

A special note for the ladies: If you’re feeling a little over the hill, a visit to the fish market will shave at least ten years off your age. “Girl,” “dear” and “miss” are liberally used, and you are greeted with great politeness.