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AHAB HAD A white whale. Hillary had Everest. Harley Baldwin, as anyone in the New York food world will tell you, has Bridgemarket. Since 1976, when he first was taken to see the huge vaulted room under the Manhattan side of the Queensborough Bridge, Baldwin has been working to turn it into a food market as splendid as the former Les Halles in Paris, the food stalls at Harrods in London, or Peck's in Milan.
When Bridgemarket is finished - the current goal is September, 1988 - it will be a dramatic three-level market selling basic ingredients, take-out food and snack food from all over the world. Shoppers with store credit cards will travel on moving sidewalks, stopping off to buy fresh fish and French bread, spices and food processors. When they're done, they'll be able to have their groceries delivered while they lunch at a worldclass restaurant. And all this, as Baldwin points out, will be just two blocks from Bloomingdale's.
But that's still in the future. When construction begins in June, it will mark the end of 11 years of planning and problems. Baldwin estimates that he and partners Sheldon Gordon, Bernard Liffshutz and Henry Catto have spent over $3 million in legal and architectural fees so far to win approval for Bridgemarket.
They've had opposition from community boards and the Landmark Preservation Commission. They've been delayed by repairs on the bridge and arguments over jurisdiction. Architects' plans and mortgages have been revised several times. Observers began to whisper that Bridgemarket would never come to be.
"It was beginning to seem like a Sisyphus project," said Vogue writer Barbara Kafka. "Harley worked all the time, but he couldn't seem to get that rock to...