Obor Market, Bucharest

The Obor Market (Piața Obor), the direct successor of the original fair, was, until 2007, Bucharest's largest public market. It covered about 16 city blocks and included a variety of indoor and outdoor market spaces, with goods ranging from compact discs to live chickens. Informally, the market spilled into the surrounding neighborhood, both in terms of street vendors and in terms of the nearby Magazin Universal ("Universal Store") named Bucur Obor, a large commercial building and housing estate (officially named the ALMO housing estate, built in 1975 and renovated in 2013 and 2017) that has been parcelled up into hundreds of small, independent retail stores. The market was demolished, not without public outcry, in order to pave the way for a modern market and a small park, thus ending a 300-year tradition.