New York break: a Chelsea market inside a Nabisco shell

Ripping the gut out of an old Oreo cookie factory and fitting into it wholesale outlets geared toward foods and restaurant supplies seems clever. Now called the Chelsea Market, it does remind me of how a place with a sordid past (not the cookie factory but the Chelsea district) can be revamped and turned into a spiffy present. Or at least it’s getting’ there.

I have to say that the factory makeover itself is stunning. Since the place is off the beaten path, there aren’t many who come just to look. Most are serious about checking things off a list. But there is also that stray person who seemed to be in search of not food, but WiFi and he found it here, within the walls of the past cookie emporium (see photo below). I don’t question the logic of putting WiFi into a former Oreo cookie place. The greater puzzle was finding, on the walk over, a tiny grocery store, the type that looks too narrow to fit in two people standing next to each other, with a large sign posted over its door: WiFi available within. Why?