Avneet Bindra packs up for the day. As dark sets in at 5:30 p.m. on a windswept evening in early winter and vandalized trucks pull out of the Aqueduct racetrack parking lot, the 22-year-old upstart folds up the wares from his blanket business. He motions to his father, Rumpy Bindra, who has manned a separate blanket business in the market for 25 years, asks the older Bindra if he needs space on his truck. They are among last few vendors who have held out on this bitterly cold December day in Ozone Park.
Bindra has grown up in this flea market, learning the tricks of the trade from his father. The iconic flea market, which has operated out of the parking lot of Aqueduct in Southwestern Queens for 30 years, is a noisy and sprawling hub for 500 vendors, many of whom are Indian, Guyanese and Caribbean immigrants making their way up the economic ladder by hawking cheap bargains to other immigrants. Now Bindra, who is paying his way through college with this business, is bracing himself for December 31, when he has to uproot his shop…
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