ASTORIA — The summer greenmarket run by GrowNYC at Socrates Sculpture Park won't return this year because it wasn't seeing enough business — but the park plans to partner directly with farmers to bring some of the same vendors back, according to a spokeswoman.
GrowNYC has been running a farmers market at the waterfront park on Saturdays during the summer since 2011, but was forced to shutter the site this year due to lack of sales, the nonprofit said.
"Closing markets is always a last resort for us," Catherine Crawford, a spokeswoman for GrowNYC, said."The administrators at Socrates Sculpture Park are wonderful to work with but, in the end, on days when there were no special events, there wasn’t enough business to sustain the farmers."
But Socrates Sculpture Park plans to continue hosting produce vendors on weekends, at least for the first few weeks of the season.
Instead of going through GrowNYC, the park will be partnering directly with farmers for a pilot market that will take place on Saturdays starting in mid-June, according to Spokeswoman Katie Denny Horowitz.
It's expected to include some of the same vendors as the former greenmarket, she said.
Meanwhile, two other GrowNYC farmers markets will return to other sites in the neighborhood this season, according to Crawford.
They include the Astoria Greenmarket on 14th Street between 31st Avenue and 31st Road, which takes place on Wednesdays and will return on July 5.
The Ditmars Park Youthmarket, which was launched last summer and is operated by student staffers, will return for the summer starting this weekend on June 3. It's held on Saturdays on Steinway Street between Ditmars Boulevard and 23rd Avenue.
