Lexington Avenue FALL Street Fair

Go if you just want to eat some delicious, fresh grilled corn and ask for all the fixings! It’s $ 3 a cob but really yummy and it’s fun to stroll down the avenue with your honey and share it while you people watch.
Just don’t expect to visit this street fair and get anything too exotic. They sell pretty much the same stuff you see everywhere else on the side of the street and inside the souvenir shops.
You also won’t be maximizing your savings if you’re after the typical NYC souvenirs of cheap jewelry, t-​shirts, baby onesies, hats, purses, etc. The truth is, these fair vendors are not eager to turn a sale. They have volume on their side so most will outright refuse to budge on price, or best case they’ll knock $ 1 – 2 off.
If you want to bargain shop, then take my advice and go visit the actual souvenir stores on Lexington Avenue that are located behind all the popup vendor tents. Those guys will be hurting a little from being blocked by the street fair all day. I got one guy to discount his $ 14 yarn animal hats to $ 10 each when I bought three. The vendors at the fair were charging $ 15 and wouldn’t give me any discount at all for the same items.

We stumbled upon this fair as we left our hotel off 51^st & Lex a late morning this weekend. I was super excited when I saw all the stands and smelled all the wonderful scents… as soon as I saw the Colombian flag, I was panting like a dog — get me some arepas and empanadas, quick! We did get some and were a bit disappointed. How could I expect they’d taste like my tia’s back in Bogota? Unreal expectations, you’d say…
We wandered the rest of the fair (which spans many blocks) and saw nothing but the SAME OLD stuff… cheap Made in China crap that I wouldn’t even bother perusing because I don’t like what it stands for. I did note a FEW local vendors of actual «goods» like spices, teas, hand-​made items, but they were scarce.
The rest of the food was gyros and fried carnival food. with a few exceptions of fruit smoothies, corn on the cob and not-​frequently-​represented ethnic food (ie. Colombian, Thai, etc).

We didn’t even know an event was planned… we just finished up eating down the road at Sarge’s Deli and decided to skip the nearby train station and walk off some of our meal. On the way to Grand Central Statin we noticed Lexington Avenue was shut down starting at 42^nd street. A pleasant surprised to walk thru a ton of food vendors and knick-​knack stands.
The food vendors had a lot of variety, from the typical hot dog stand, to grilled corn, to a few international varieties. This part I liked (I didn’t get anything since I was still full from Sarge’s but it was a pleasant scent in the air in lieu of exhaust).
There was a few miscellaneous stands that stood out (a good or bad way… the verdict is still out on that one); such as a guy at a card table jamming to reggae and doing he best to attract buyers of his CDs but it just seemed like the wrong location (no one came to his stand as far as I could tell).
The remaining vendors, AND I DO MEAN A LOT OF VENDORS, had either cheap (but nice) jewelry stands or scarves. It was kinda overkill. We are talking about 15 city blocks of A LOT OF THE SAME THING over and over and over again. We bought a couple things on the first couple blocks but after walking a few blocks it became really repetitive, felt silly continuing so we bailed. Boobs. It was also awkward too because EVERY stand seems to be vendors straight from China Town and NO ONE WAS all that inviting or all that friendly (kinda like Canal Street vendors with less hustling).
A bit more variety would have easily made this 3 stars
And a little manners, politeness and a smile could have made it 4 stars