Englishtown Auction

[mike a]

Tom described this Middlesex County outdoor dirt mall as a Mad Max-like evocation of what shopping will be like after the apocalypse.  I used to go to the Englishtown Auction once a month in the early '80s, and I can attest that this description is spot-on.  There were better record booths in the early '80s, but...well, let's let pictures tell the story:

http://flickr.com/search/?w=all&q=englishtown+flea&m=text
http://flickr.com/search/?q=englishtown%20auction&w=all

I couldn't find any pics of the Route 18 flea market interior, but here's a scary Hitchcockian outdoor photo:

http://flickr.com/photos/idcomics/428974658/

[Martin Edison]

Englishtown should really have its own county...

...or planet

[B_Buster]

I also used to frequent the Englishtown auction back in the early 80s. Do you remember Mighty Igor's record store? It was in the corner of one of the buildings. He had great stuff. So great that I made the trip to his other larger (and better) store in Pennsauken. That was back in my record collecting days. Now I barely have the patience to look through a record bin.

[mike a]

I never knew any of the record retailers by name.  There was that one indoor stall, and the couple of outdoor ones.  I found some of my most prized postpunk records at those outdoor stalls - I still curse myself for not buying a PiL Metal Box when it was new, but at age 13, that's a big investment.

Raceway Park is near the Englishtown Auction.  And there used to be a scary BBQ restaurant nearby with a huge chicken statue atop its roof.  Calling it "Englishtown" is false advertising if you ask me.

[Shaggy 2 Grote]

I used to love going to Englishtown when I was a kid in the late 70s/early 80s (I also used to like Port Authority, which looked exactly like in Taxi Driver).  In about 1983, at a used bookstore in Cranbury, NJ, I picked up a bunch of back issues of "Kamandi, The Last Boy on Earth," a Jack Kirby joint about a shirtless hippie kid in jean-shorts who runs around a post-apocalyptic world.  Anyway, in one storyline he fights a giant snake who owns a department store, and at 12 years old, I remember thinking that the store looked exactly like the Englishtown Flea Market.  It made me so happy when Tom said that last week.

[mike a]

Sadly, the Route 18 flea market is on the chopping block:

http://www.mycentraljersey.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080911/NEWS/809110412/-1/newsfront

Central Jersey denizens: does the Record Setter still exist?  Across from Brunswick Square Mall?  I bought many a new wave album there as a teen.