As farmers' market season approaches here in Southeast Pennsylvania, I've got a longstanding gripe about one of Philadelphia's most popular markets - Headhouse Farmers' Market at Second and Lombard Streets - that I'd like to get off my chest.For those unfamiliar with Headhouse Farmers' Market, it's housed under the historic Shambles structure, a building built for merchants to gather at and sell their wares. The Shambles is essentially a long, narrow, covered walkway.
Vendors at Headhouse Farmers' Market line their tables up inside the covered walkway along the outer edges with the front of their display facing towards the inside of the structure, making shopping only possible by walking down what is now, thanks to vendor's tables taking up room, an even narrower walkway.
It's frustrating and miserable to shop at Headhouse Farmer's Market with the throngs of distracted people with their overstuffed canvas shopping bags, toe-crunching baby strollers, and dogs underfoot, all stuffed in a narrow hallway. I've never visited a more tight, claustrophobic, ass-bumping farmer's market in my life!
Last year, I wanted to kiss the one vendor (forgot their name, but they sold lots of peaches and apples), Three Springs Fruit Farm, who moved their table out from underneath the walkway to the very spacious sidewalk just outside the Shambles' roof, and, essentially, formed a wide-open room to duck into from the narrow confines of the market. Finally, someone was thinking!
Please, please, please, Headhouse Farmers' Market manager, make the vendors get their asses out from underneath the narrow walkway.
Make "rooms" like the one vendor did, use the sidewalk, heck, why not even block traffic on the one block of Second St. between Lombard and Pine and use the street (they already block the northbound side, which only one or two lunch vendors make use of, but should block the southbound side, as well).
The Shambles is a beautiful building, but don't be confined by it.
Do this one thing for me, and I won't rant about the boutique produce prices.
10 comments:
I totally agree! Maybe an e-mail or phone call to the Food Trust would help out this situation.
I'm excited for the market to open this season. Marisa has me dreaming of canning and jamming all spring/summer long.
I've been driving the boy crazy about this since last summer - every time we go, I'm a broken record that if the farmers would just turn their tables around and stand in the shade of the walkway, with their wares facing the street (and people wandering on the outside of the Shamble, I wouldn't want to punt the small dogs that start encircling my feet just as I pick up eggs.
One word: zoning.
Okay, more words.... The elbow room loving side of me doesn't disagree with your suggestions for a second, T, but I'm taking an educated guess (based on my work at the much smaller Havertown Farmers Market) that there's some sort of license or ordinance that prevents the vendors from setting up in reverse. It's amazing how specific the licensing for markets can be. And closing off a second street? A great idea but a huge bureaucratic obstacle to overcome with the city (not to mention the gripes from all those entitled drivers who might have to go two blocks out of their way). I'm guessing the retail-oriented storefronts on that side of the block might have something against closing the street as well.
When I went last summer, I took a survey from a Food Trust person and mentioned this issue, and he said they were working on figuring out a solution (I was offering Holly H.'s inside-out suggestion).
I know that last summer, they tried to expand so that there were also stalls running along the northbound side of second street, thinking that that would relieve the congestion. All it did was make those vendors feel like they were in no-man's land.
I agree that more stands should use the space outside the shambles (I really appreciated the vendor who did it last year as well). I also wonder if they market shouldn't ask people to keep their dogs at home (I know other markets around the country have done such things).
Personally, I just can't wait until the market opens, crowds or no crowds. I will be there every week that I can manage, buying my food and generally soaking up the feeling of the place. Yay for the Headhouse Square market!
i believe that was Ben Wenk's stand you're talking about.
I actually discussed this situation on almost a weekly basis with the people manning the table for the market managers. They claim that they talk to the vendors about but they are helpless to force them.
You for got to mention all the people with their SUV sized baby strollers hogging what little walking space remains.
I'm blushing!
http://www.threespringsfruitfarm.com
Ben - Mmmwaah! Big kiss to you, Ben.
Not dissing on families, but the problem is the strollers...they clog up what is already a tight, but negotiable, space.
How about a voluntary parking lot for strollers with a Food Trust attendant(s) over on N. 2nd sidewalk?
Then putting some temporary posts/sawhorses at either end of the Shambles like a grocery store does to keep their carts from disappearing, except this would keep strollers out of the main walkway.
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