{"id":1807,"date":"2008-06-26T08:17:35","date_gmt":"2008-06-26T12:17:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/broadwayfillmorealive.org\/2.0\/2008\/06\/26\/artvoice-what-the-market-will-bear\/"},"modified":"2008-06-26T08:32:39","modified_gmt":"2008-06-26T12:32:39","slug":"artvoice-market","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/broadwayfillmorealive.org\/2.0\/2008\/06\/artvoice-market\/","title":{"rendered":"Artvoice: What The Market Will Bear"},"content":{"rendered":"

(Geoff Kelly – Artvoice) Noon on a Tuesday at the Broadway Market. Outside a man is hawking athletic socks, while another challenges passersby to a chess game in the scant shade of a maple tree in a concrete planter. About a half dozen people stand in line at a hot dog stand. The corner is a meeting place, alive with action and conversation. Traffic is brisk, on the street and on the sidewalk.\"M<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the outside. Inside, the market is quiet and nearly empty. But for the PA system playing classic rock, you could hear a clock ticking. Twice in the past two weeks I\u2019ve visited the Broadway Market at lunchtime and counted no more than a dozen customers in the cavernous main hall. Half of those are elderly men and women sipping coffee from paper cups in the food court. At least a third of the active vendors left in the market\u2014there are 34 right now, compared to more than 50 just 10 years ago\u2014are shuttered. Excluding the Save-a-Lot grocery store and the market\u2019s four lunch counters, which were busier, I counted six cash transactions between customers and vendors in one hour.<\/p>\n

Six sales in an hour. Fewer vendors, fewer choices. What\u2019s wrong with this place? The Broadway Market has survived 120 years, and the last 30 have been tough, but never has its prognosis seemed so grim. Where are the customers? Why have so many vendors leave? Is it the neighborhood, whose economic decline mirrors that of most every other East Side neighborhood? Is it racism? Is it competition from suburban supermarkets? Is it poor public transportation and the market\u2019s distance from the downtown core? God knows it can\u2019t be lack of parking\u2014thanks to a car-centric reconstruction of the market in 1late 1950s, there are 1,300 parking spaces in the attached ramp, which are almost always mostly unused.<\/p>\n

[Read full story in Artvoice<\/a>]<\/p>\n

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