November 19, 2007, 1:09 pm Holiday Business in Bryant Park, Once Cold
as Ice, Heats Up By Jennifer 8. Lee ice skating BryantA third season of
ice skating on the Pond at Bryant Park opened on Oct. 29. (Photo:
Marilynn K. Yee/The New York Times) Over the last five years, the
holiday market at Bryant Park has been transformed from being a static
and tepid street fair to a bustling showcase of plexiglass booths with
$5 million to $6 million in total retail sales for its vendors. But in
the early days, the market struggled to fill up the slots with mass
mailings, recruiting at street fairs, and persuading skeptical retailers
to open a second location in Bryant Park for the holidays. This year,
the market, which opened on Saturday and will run for six weeks, had 300
applications for the 100 or so booths, which cost from $9,000 to $40,000
to rent. Vendors which generally sell high-end crafts, jewelry and
clothing now do an average of $60,000 to $70,000 in sales, with a
handful breaking $100,000. The top vendor clears $300,000 in merchandise
during the period. Those numbers breed competition. Almost all of the
vendors from last year wanted to return, but the market only accepted
about two-thirds of them through a newly competitive selection process,
according to Frank DiPrisco, the executive director. The problem in the
early days was that Bryant Park was competing with a number of other
markets in the city Union Square holiday market, the Grand Central
Terminal holiday bazaar. It also did not help that the blocks around
Bryant Park were not particularly heavy with retail outlets. Mr.
DiPrisco noted that "2002 and 2003 were definitely struggling
years." So what was done to drive traffic during the holidays?
They opened a free skating rink in 2005 with the Bryant Park
Corporation. With corporate sponsorship to cover the $4 million costs,
the rink was able to charge only for skate rentals while making
admission free, unlike Wollman Rink in Central Park and the rink at
Rockefeller Center, where fees are charged to use the ice. Free skating
in turn has drawn a lot of free publicity (Are we falling for it again?
Well, we like to skate.) "There was so much excitement," Mr.
DiPrisco said. "There was a huge surge of traffic for the park."
Suddenly, the shops, which were attracting mostly tourists, were also
drawing residents and commuters within a 50-mile radius. Even
businessmen in suits can be spotted lacing up their skates and going for
a spin on the ice. It remains to be seen if unseasonably warm weather
will affect skating traffic though some flakes were spotted in
Midtown this morning, with more decent amounts of snow farther west and
north of the city.
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