The factory where the Oreo was invented, turned into a food hall on the ground floor and Google's New York offices upstairs.
Where the Oreo comes from
This was the National Biscuit Company’s main factory — Nabisco — and the Oreo was developed and first produced in this building in 1912. The complex takes up a full city block and the conversion in the 1990s left the industrial fabric almost entirely alone: exposed brick, riveted steel, a factory well with water running through it, and a drill bit lodged in a wall.
Google bought the building in 2018 for $2.4 billion and occupies the upper floors. The ground floor food hall carried on as before, which was part of the deal.
What to eat
The concourse runs the length of the block with around thirty-five vendors. The ones people queue for:
Los Tacos No. 1 — the queue by the entrance. Adobada and nopal on handmade tortillas, eaten standing at the counter. Worth the wait.
Chelsea Market Baskets for British and imported groceries.
Sarabeth’s for bakery.
Miznon for Israeli pita.
The Lobster Place for a raw bar, a fishmonger and lobster rolls in the same space.
Fat Witch Bakery for brownies.
Doughnuttery for tiny cinnamon-sugar doughnuts made in front of you.
Very Fresh Noodles for hand-pulled biang biang.
There is no central seating to speak of, which is the market’s main design flaw. Most people eat standing or take it out to the High Line, whose 16th Street exit is directly outside.
Beyond food
There is an artists’ and vintage market at the western end, a good bookshop, Anthropologie, and a handful of homeware shops. Downstairs on the Tenth Avenue side, a passage leads through to the Meatpacking District.
Timing and pairing
The classic combination is the Whitney, the High Line, and Chelsea Market in some order, and all three are within four blocks. Doing the market first and eating on the High Line works better than the reverse.
The neighbourhood around it — the Meatpacking District — was still a working meat market into the 2000s. A few wholesalers remain on Washington Street, working early mornings, alongside the hotels and shops that replaced the rest.
More Shopping & Markets
Fifth Avenue
The eleven blocks between Rockefeller Center and Central Park hold the most expensive retail rents in the world. Window shopping is free and the windows are the point.
Macy's Herald Square
A million square feet of department store with wooden escalators from 1902 still running on the upper floors. Free to ride, and almost nobody does.
SoHo Cast-Iron District
The largest collection of cast-iron architecture in the world, saved from a motorway by Jane Jacobs, filled with artists, and now filled with shops.