Market Research: a panel on NYC’s public markets, past and present

Join artist collective and AAI’s LES Studio Program alum , on the mezzanine of Essex Market, for a panel discussion examining the intertwined histories of unofficial street vending and city-subsidized indoor markets in New York City—from the past to the present.

Presented in response to the current exhibition at inside , this conversation brings together artists, historians, and advocates to explore how local government initiatives, public policy, and grassroots organizing have shaped street life and systems of exchange across NYC’s marketplaces for nearly a century.

Located inside Essex Market on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, the exhibition transforms the gallery into a hybrid research site and storefront, foregrounding questions of visibility, commerce, and belonging. Building on these themes, the panel will look to the past to examine former policies and sites of exchange, and will consider current possibilities for creating a more just, equitable, and affordable New York—from city-subsidized grocery models to permits, protections, and pathways forward for immigrant street vendors.

Shanzhai Lyric will facilitate the discussion with prepared prompts for the panelists, followed by an open Q&A with attendees.

About the panelists:

Canal Street Research Association is a fictional office founded in 2020 in an empty storefront on Canal Street, New York City’s counterfeit epicenter. CSRA explores the street’s cultural and material ecologies and its long history as a site that probes the limits of ownership and authorship. By repurposing underused real estate as spaces for gathering ephemeral histories, mapping local lore, and tracing the flows and fissures of capital, they have occupied storefronts, empty office buildings, a storage unit, a basement, and a riverbank, collaborating with local artists, businesses, vendors, and passersby.

Canal Street Research Association is operated by Shanzhai Lyric (Ming Lin and Alex Tatarsky), a poetic research unit that studies the nonstandard language of counterfeit (山寨 shanzhai) garments as a challenge to dominant hierarchies, power structures, and ideas of property. Their projects have been shown at Abrons Arts Center, Giselle’s, Henry Moore Institute, Kunsthalle Wien, MoMA PS1, Stuart Hall Library, Women’s Art Library, Amant, Artists Space, Canal Projects, CARA, the Center for Canadian Architecture, Clemente Soto Velez, SculptureCenter, and Storefront for Art & Architecture.

Robert LaValva is a designer, creative director, and placemaking consultant with expertise in sustainable infrastructure, food systems, and economic development. His practice focuses on the connections between culture and environment. He envisioned and produced the acclaimed New Amsterdam Market, a gathering of sustainable food purveyors held on the East River waterfront in Lower Manhattan from 2007 to 2014.

Robert has consulted on a variety of initiatives for the private sector, government agencies, and non-profit organizations, combining his passion for design with his understanding of food systems and public space. He played a key role in the redevelopment of New York City's Essex Market and is currently programming the revitalization of Buffalo's historic Broadway Market.

Nina LoSchiavo Nina LoSchiavo is the Chief Operating Officer of the Lower East Side Partnership, a business-improvement district and economic and community development organization. LESP supports Essex Market through public programming, small business advocacy, and human-centered service design, working to advance the market as an inclusive cultural institution while preserving its historical significance.

Nina has worked with LESP since 2015 through Essex Market's transition from its LaGuardia-era home at 120 Essex to city-sponsored development in Essex Crossing. She holds a BFA in Graphic Design from the School of Visual Arts and an MPA in Public Administration from Baruch College.

Mohamed Attia is the Managing Director of the Street Vendor Project at the Urban Justice Center (SVP), a 3,000+ member-strong organization that champions the rights of street vendors as small businesses to earn a living and contribute to the culture and life of New York City. Attia migrated to the US from Alexandria, Egypt, in 2008 working as a street vendor for nearly ten years selling hot dogs, halal chicken over rice, and smoothies in Times Square. He joined as a member of the SVP in 2012 and was an elected member leader of the organization until 2018, when he joined SVP's staff as Managing Director. Attia championed legislation passed in 2021 by the New York City Council that expanded the number of permits available to street vendors for the first time in nearly 40 years. He has been profiled for his advocacy work on behalf of the street vendor community by The New York Times, Crains New York, and was recognized on 2021 City & State Community Engagement Power 50 List, 2023 Power of Diversity: Middle Eastern & North African 50 & The 2025 Trailblazers in Economic Development.

Through direct legal representation, small business development training, grassroots organizing, leadership development, and strategic legislative advocacy, the Street Vendor Project builds power and community among vendors. Learn more about SVP at http://streetvendor.org/

This panel is supported by Artists Alliance Inc. and the Lower East Side Partnership.

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Host or Publisher Artists Alliance Inc.