Ithaca Farmers' Market

The week we arrived in Ithaca, the local Ithaca Times carried an article on the Silent movie era and its early days in Ithaca. It said ‘In 1913, Theodore Wharton came to Ithaca to shoot footage of typical college life, he liked the natural beauty of the town with its gorges and its lake and produced over 100 film titles from about 1914 to 1919. This is one of the few original silent film studios in the United States’. However, most people know Ithaca as the place in Upstate New York where Cornell University was founded in 1865 and which continues till today to be home to students from all over the world.

 
For a student at Cornell, the University campus is all they know when they leave school. There is no time for anything else. Some remember the quadrangle where their department is housed. Others only remember the library where they spent all the hours of all their days here. For a student, this is definitely the centre of the universe with nothing else beyond. But, if you do not come here as a student, it is nice to also experience the town. For instance, there is the Cayuga lake, there are the Taughannock Falls, there is Stewart park and there is the Ithaca Farmer’s Market!

The market is a co-operative with over 150 vendors who live within 30 miles of Ithaca. These vendors bring fruits, vegetables, meat, poultry as well as freshly baked goods, honey and sauces to the market at the Steamboat landing locatio (which we visited) every Saturday and Sunday. There is also the Dewitt Park location where the market takes place on Tuesdays and Thursdays. There are artists and photographers who exhibit their work here. The Ithaca farmers’ market first opened in 1973 as a place for local food growers to sell their produce and for local artisans to market their crafts. Today, the location at the Steamboat landing is also a picnic place as people come here to shop, to listen to music and to just sit by the waterfront.

I am sharing here some photos from our weekend visit, when the weather was absolutely wonderful and we got a glimpse of the ‘shop+picnic’ scene in Ithaca.

There is a lot more about the Ithaca Farmers’ market at: http://www.ithacamarket.com/
 

Faneuil Hall marketplace

I am sitting by the Boston Harbour as I write this post. There’s the hum of people talking as they walk past and the live music that’s playing nearby. There’s a view of the boats at the harbour with the reflection of the afternoon sun shimmering on their sides. This is just a two-minute walk from the Faneuil Hall marketplace where I’ve been all morning, my second time this week. It’s the weekend and there are crowds everywhere.

The Faneuil Hall building as you approach it from the Boston Harbour side

The Faneuil hall has served as a marketplace and meeting hall since it was built in 1742. It was donated to Boston by wealthy merchant Peter Faneuil to accommodate farmers bringing their products to town. The hall was built on land gained by the filling of a cove near the dilapidated town dock. The lower level of the hall was divided into stalls which sold meat, vegetables and dairy products. The large meeting room on the upper floor became Boston’s official town hall.

The Plan of Boston showing the long, rectangular Quincy market and the North & South market buildings on either side as they face the Faneuil Hall. To the right, the map shows the Boston harbour. The 'North End' seen above is an old, Italian neighbourhood.

In 1761, fire gutted Faneuil Hall, burning the interior. Two years later, repairs were completed, this time financed by a public lottery. In 1826, the Marketplace was expanded to include the new Quincy market building (as well as the North market & South market buildings) and became the hub of New England commerce in response to Boston’s rapid growth. These three market buildings along with the Faneuil Hall’s market stalls continued to be Boston’s wholesale food distribution center until the 1960’s. (Source: National Park Service, U.S.Department of the Interior, MA)

The small sign of old times still exists, unlike the signage culture of today where urban landscapes with the scale and intensity of hoardings are becoming "cities of signs"

Today, the Faneuil Hall is not a market in the traditional sense. There are no vendors selling fruits and vegetables or fish and meat. There are no flower sellers or booksellers. There is no barter, there is no bargaining, not anymore. The ground floor contains shops and eating establishments. The second floor meeting room is used by the Park Rangers of the National Park Service. The third floor has the museum and armory of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company of Massachusetts. Here is a link to the official website: http://www.faneuilhallmarketplace.com/

A shopfront inside the Quincy market building with its line of eateries offering clam chowder, bagel pizzas, icecreams and starbucks coffee and so much else.
 
Now, the Faneuil hall is visited by not only the locals who live in Boston but also tourists who come here from all over the country and from all over the world. You can buy food, you can buy clothes, you can learn about the history of the place, you can hear live music sometimes.

The urban space between the three market buildings becomes the place for social interaction
 
You find places to be with the food and the music; spaces where you can sit and watch people as you contemplate about life. The Faneuil Hall marketplace and the Boston Harbour are urban spaces that are designed to let you do that. And, I think that’s what I like about this marketplace. Here, you can relax after you shop, you can spend time with your family outdoors in the midst of the shopping and the eating. It’s a place where you can take a stroll, have a drink, laugh together as you “do nothing”.

I am reminded of Jan Gehl’s book Life between buildings which emphasizes that planning processes must begin by understanding the spaces between buildings. He says, “First life, then spaces, then buildings – the other way around never works.” The book was first published in 1971 and continues to be a widely used handbook on the relationship between public spaces and the social life in cities.

In an Indian bazaar, the “life between buildings” is sometimes about livelihoods, sometimes about shelter (with streets often encroached upon by migrants & the informal sector). It is never about “doing nothing”. It is not a concept associated with our urban spaces. We do not have planned urban spaces. We have streets that flow into each other and life flows in these streets.

The pushcarts inside the market buildings create an informal environment for shopping. Faneuil Hall marketplace was the first in the country to introduce pushcart shopping providing entrepreneurial opportunity to New England artisans.
 
As I walk the streets of Boston and absorb the marketplace experience at Faneuil Hall, I realize that there is so much to appreciate here and to learn from and simultaneously know that the complexity in the streets of India has its own place. It is yet an unplanned complexity, one in which there are many who participate, knowingly or unknowingly. Of course, the mind goes back to India and to Russell market in Bangalore which a friend tells me has been buzzing with Ramzan festivity in the evenings.

A sign that we'd like to see outside the many, many historic market buildings in the cities of India conserving architectural heritage and our urban heritage.
 
I sit down a second time now to continue writing this post, now at the Coop Store at Harvard Square, away from the sunny marketplace environment of the Faneuil Hall and the Quincy market. The Coop, founded by Harvard students in 1882 and established as a cooperative is open to the public offering four floors of books and a cafetaria. The Coop is a store where you browse books with greater leisure than you would in a library, sipping your coffee and knowing that the Coop Store like the Faneuil Hall is designed for you to contemplate about life and all you want to learn from it.


Related Posts:
The Marketplace: Lonely Planet Blog Carnival #23

Gujari Bazaar – the 600 yr old market

I reached Ellis bridge in Ahmedabad on a really hot afternoon in March this year. I was seeing for the first time the Gujari Bazaar. I had heard about it many times before. I had read about it before I came here. This self-managed bazaar was locally called the ‘Ravivari’ or Sunday market. It had more than 1200 registered traders, most of them selling used items and a few selling new goods.The livelihoods of nearly 20,000 households were linked directly and indirectly with this market.

One would think that anything 600 years old would look old. It didn’t. With the way people went about in the bazaar, this did not look like a part of a period film. It just looked like a crowded bazaar that belonged to the present. However, it was a present that was part urban and part rural. As I entered the bazaar from one end of the Ellis bridge, there was a line of street vendors selling fruit on what seemed like high wooden platforms until I realised that they were camel carts (without the camels).

Ahmedabad was a city that had continued to be both urban and rural with nomadic tribes living in some neighbourhoods, with artisan communities settling here from other parts of Gujarat, with the city bearing ways of living that reflected traditional customs alongside contemporary needs that it was never quite urban in the way western societies define ‘urban’. It reminded me of the “urban-rural continuum” that Kerala had been known to have (in discussions about vernacular architectural traditions) with no discernible boundaries between the paddy fields and urban infrastructure.

The question that came to my mind was: How does a bazaar sustain for 600 years? For anything to sustain, it must be resilient enough. We do know that. How was this resilience built into our traditional bazaars? Was it in the nature of the people who sold their wares? Was it in the relationships and networks on which the buying and selling rested, that the resilience was embedded? Was it in the indigenous credit systems? How much of these still survived? Why had this bazaar not gradually faded away or been buried into the history of the city of Ahmedabad?

As I think about it now, knowing that it was a 600 year old bazaar had been so much in my mind before I reached there and after I got there, that I could think of nothing else for some time. As John Berger says in his book, The Ways of Seeing – “The relation between what we see and what we know is never settled” What I also knew from before was that this vibrant bazaar was in the centre of controversy – the Sabarmati Riverfront development project threatened to displace the bazaar that had been a source of livelihood for several vendors. The Gujari bazaar had a long, long history, but a short-lived future.

The historical background of the bazaar tells us that it was started in 1414 by Sultan Ahmed Shah, the Founder of Ahmedabad. At that time, it operated on Fridays and spread from Teen Darwaza to Bhadra Taar office. The 1941 communal riots had forced the closure of the bazaar for some time. It reopened a few months later, first near the Siddhi Sayyed mosque and later near the old Civil court. It was in 1954 that it was finally shifted to the Sabarmati riverfront at its present location.

Today, the Gujari bazaar is seen as a marketplace that belongs to the ‘Intangible Cultural heritage’ of the city of Ahmedabad. It has been included by the Centre for Environment Education (CEE) in its ‘Project Parampara’ which is a documentation initiative supported by the Ministry of Culture. There are three films on the Gujari bazaar which can be accessed at http://www.paramparaproject.org/traditions_gujari-bazar.html which highlight the role of the Gujari bazaar association and the linkages between artisans and traders who have participated in the bazaar for many generations.

The short-lived future of the Gujari bazaar has been discussed in public meetings and efforts continue to be made by not-for-profit organisations and educational institutions in the City to propose alternatives to the displacement of tradition and livelihoods. In December 2009, a Public hearing was held in Ahmedabad to discuss displacements experienced by the poor and included the case of the Gujari bazaar. This is a link to the Report of Public hearing on Habitat and Livelihood displacements.

The verdict of the jury had said that the Gujari bazaar was a heritage activity of the city and its shifting needed to be re-examined by the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation with the participation of the traders. A forum of concerned citizens of Ahmedabad called ‘Our Inclusive Ahmedabad’ had organised this Public hearing and continues to battle with the government for the rights of the vendors.

If an informal, temporal marketplace has been a part of a city for six hundred years, why would we want to let it go? It's time perhaps to reflect on sustainable development as Indians understood it in the past. What cultural processes and planning processes did they deploy that we can learn from? What can we remember from what we know from our past that will help us design a better future for our cities?

Here is a link to: www.gujaribazaar.org which discusses the Livelihood and Community-related aspects of the bazaar and the efforts of management and design professionals from IIMA and NID towards working with the Ahmedabad Gujari Association in the recent past.

Related Posts:
The Riddle of Russell market
Gandhi Bazaar: Street vendor eviction
The Informal Economy and Urban space
The Politics of the Marketplace

Exploring Borough Market

This is a Guest post by MEENA VENKATARAMAN. In the light of the bright morning sun, Southwark cathedral is a beautiful sight. Days like these are few in otherwise grey London. It is nonetheless cold and we head to the market in search of hot food. Not surprisng at all, the sun is more an accessory, an adornment to what is a beautiful day. London has some of the best food markets and the one we are visiting is one of the oldest. We step on the cobbled street.

The first array of shops are lined along a narrow lane behind the cathedral. We spy a few cafes tucked away, bustling with people. A couple of steps down this lane and we enter the market itself. At once the colours, shapes and the distinct aroma of all kinds of food hits me, an assualt on the senses. I am drawn to colour like a moth to a flame and I reach for my camera. The first line of shops are full of sweet treats, a mouth watering spectacle. As we walk by, we pick up free samples to taste. If only we could buy them all.

Borough Market is ancient. The trick to surviving change is to adapt and assimilate, Evolve as they say. And so it has been with this market. When the market first stared is still speculative. Some say the 13th century or earlier, when the market was established in response to the growing traffic of traders selling their produce - grain, fruits, vegetables, livestock and fish on London Bridge. But the present location was a piece of land called the 'Triangle' which was purchased by the residents when the first market was closed down by an act of parliament in 1755. The market has been on the scene since and, in addition to the local produce, it has managed to assimilate the cultural vibrance of London as a city. It is not just British produce you find here, but all kinds of food from around the globe - Turkish, Middle Eastern, Malaysian, Indian, Thai and a whole host of others.

The vegetables are eye-catching. ‘Capsicum’ I say, ‘Peppers’ I am corrected :). The bright red tomatoes and fruits of all shapes and sizes sit neatly stacked. Behind them is a neat line of spices. Besides food and vegetable, the market sells art. Brightly arrayed cards are on display.

And then, there is the cheese. Completely fresh and extremely tasty. Stripped off packaging that it normally comes with in the supermarket the proposition of buying cheese seemed so much more appealing. The whites and mild yellows with promise of milky goodness seemed to linger on the taste buds. My personal favourite was the Cheddar. But there were so many others that were just as mention worthy.

It is a Saturday and what most people are here for is the food. It is hard making a choice in this place. But what makes it harder are the free samples being given away. So, we barter our appetite to what we think would make us a good meal and stand in patches of sun as we eat. The vegetable soya burger is great. Some distance away we buy some mulled wine. Out of curiosity we ask the lady what spices have gone into this yummy warm christmasy concoction. I remember cloves and nutmeg from that conversation and cinnamon maybe. A little away the Malaysian stall is running brisk business. Huge pots of curry are being made and given away in boxes. Where else would you get such a wonderful meal for under a fiver.

We walk along. The market is huge. We enter the section selling meat. Fish lies stacked on ice to preserve freshness I guess. There is more food and vegetable. We walk through and come out on the other side of the market.

What strikes me is how the market has shaped things to come. Around the market there are several restaurants. People seem to be queueing up to get it. The entire area has something special about it. There is a sort of synergy and there seems to be plenty of room for every kind of business here.

After a good two or three hours roaming the lanes inside and out we finally step out of this gem of a market. But it has been a frequent haunt with its promise of good food and drink when we find ourselves in the area.

I'd like to thank Meena for writing this guest post and for sharing her photographs. This is the link to Meena's blog: Travel Tazzels

Marketplaces of the World - a listing

This is the start of a cumulative list of blogposts on Marketplaces of the World.

I’d like to thank fellow bloggers who have already shared their links or written guest posts here:
The Marketplace– a Lonely Planet Blog Carnival - Lonely Planet Bloggers
Keswick Market in Cumbria – by Radha Vijay of 'Musings of a Night Owl'
Witches Market – by Meena Venkataraman of 'Travel Tazzels'
Albert Cuyp market in Amsterdam – by Hasti Tarekat

If you have written earlier about a Marketplace anywhere in the world and can share the link, I’d like to add it to the list here. If you can write a guest post on a market that you have visited recently or not yet written about, that would be very welcome too.

For sharing links and suggestions, please do leave a comment on this blogpost or write an email to: kiranmkeswani(at)gmail(dot)com

The list continues here:
Bengali Bazaars (in Bangladesh) at 'I Should Cocoa'
The Food Bazaars...who needs organic? at 'I was in Turkey'
La Boqueria Market at 'I drink my tea sweet'
Iran: Bazaars of Shiraz at 'Ramble and Wander'
Sixth Street Market in Cincinnati at 'Blog at Cincinnati.com'
Istanbul: bazaars, boza, fish bread, palimpsest at 'Hearthstrung'

Related Post:
Bazaars of India: a listing

The Politics of the Marketplace

The resilience of the marketplace in the Indian city makes one rethink about the modes of analysis of the urban processes. If a marketplace is influenced by the economic, the social and the political environment that prevails in the city, how do we interlace the readings and find meaningful answers when a problem occurs? How can we ensure that structures of power affect urban living in a beneficial way?

The reconstruction at the damaged Russell market started a few days ago. On visiting the market yesterday, I found that the work is going on at a rapid pace so that the market activity can resume to its normal level. At present, the fruit and vegetable vendors have already started to conduct business in the mornings. The market functions from the space that has already been roofed with the new corrugated metal sheets and metal rafters. An article in IBN Live, Renovation of Russell market points out that Rs. 40 lakhs has been invested. The vendors mentioned that they would be spending upto Rs.70 lakhs although their ideal budget was Rs.1.5 crores.

It is good to see that the vendors and the customers have a chance to be back into their familiar routine of the everyday sales. However, all is not well yet. The vendors have now been asked by the BBMP to vacate the premises. A legal notice has been issued stating that the building is in a dilapidated condition and not fit for occupation yet. The government reminded the vendors that it owns the building, it wants the vendors to evacuate the property and repair the damages based on a thorough evaluation of the structural condition of the market. The vendors have not yet left the building and the renovation work has not been stopped.

When I asked the vendors how they would respond to the government's stance that they own the market building and therefore the efforts of the vendors were not legal, they said they could not have waited for the government to plan the renovation. In the initial days after the fire, the government officials had told them that they didnot presently have the funds. It would have taken some months for the building to be repaired and for them to restart their business. Besides, they weren’t sure if it wouldn’t have all been postponed until after the elections. So, they had no choice but to invest their own funds and appoint a contractor for the repair work.

The Deccan Chronicle has noted in an article Russell market was the handiwork of miscreants on March 9, 2012 that “The initial suspicion was that the fire was caused due to an electrical short-circuit. However, the State Electrical Inspectorate that has been brought in to investigate the cause of the fire, has ruled out that angle and has given a clean chit to Bescom”. The vendors had said in the first few days after the fire that it could not have been an electrical short circuit. Now, the news highlights that “Bescom officials, from the start, had maintained that they were not to be blamed for the fire. We have even given in writing to the State Electrical Inspectorate the reasons for the fire. We are still waiting for the final report as it as not been submitted to us” said Mr Ashok Angadi, chief engineer, Bescom”

The former chief minister Kumaraswamy visited the Russell market ten days ago and handed over cheques of Rs.20,000 to many of the vendors who’s stalls had been affected. In DNA’s article on 5th March 2012, Kumaraswamy visits Russell market, gives Rs.20,000 each to shopkeepers he is reported to have said: “Other leaders such as SM Krishna may have promised Rs1 crore as compensation, but nothing has come of it. Unlike other leaders, I have not made any promises but shown you that I can deliver”

The evacuation notice by BBMP to the vendors, who seem to have challenged the ownership of the building by investing in the repairs themselves, the statement from Bescom clearing themselves from the blame of negligence and a People’s representative reassuring the local population of Shivajinagar that his concern and support for them can be valued as higher than his fellow representatives – at the root of all of this – there seems to be protection of individual interests surpassing the need for concern of heritage that belongs to the public and functionality of urban services for public good. There seems to be an exertion of power that each group professes that others must contend with. How can these seemingly individual actions become collective decisions for the city and its urban spaces?

Related posts:
Russell market after the fire
The Riddle of Russell market
Informal Economy and Urban space

The Marketplace: Lonely Planet Blog Carnival #23

The theme of this Blog carnival is a journey through a market or bazaar anywhere in the world. These thoughtful and exciting stories unravel life in the marketplace experienced at different times but all coming together here for you to transcend from wherever you are at this moment to where the Lonely Planet Travel bloggers think you would love to be!!

David Bennett of Quillcards tells us the story of the Changing Times In The Largest Indoor Market In Europe as he describes the Kirkgate Market in the center of Leeds in Yorkshire in the north of England.

“As long as I have known Kirkgate market it has been the province of ‘working class’ Leeds. Some people in Leeds never shop there, preferring to shop in more upmarket places. So to see Jamie Oliver’s Ministry of Food in Kirkgate market helps to bring about a paradigm shift in the way markets are seen.”

Jennifer Hattam of The Turkish Life recollects her experience at an Uzbek bazaar - the Chorsu bazaar area at Tashkent in Uzbekistan which she had noted down as a journal entry during her travel there in November 2004.

“We dipped our fingers to taste honey dripping from a knife and spices sold out of canvas sacks as nearby vendors sat and churned huge vats of a marshmallow-like substance and offered tastes to passers-by.”

Brandon of Freewheelings writes about the Mysticism in an Indian Bazaar sharing an enlightening experience as he sat at a chai (tea) stall bench in the middle of a New Delhi bazaar in North India.

“All the noise of the contemporary bazaar for that moment stopped, all the movement.  It was just me and that bench amidst a sea of uninterpreted perception, a procession of thought imagery.  I had, for that moment, no question to pose to the universe and no quarrel.  For that split second I had tapped into what I believe to be the collective unconscious."

In A Leap Into The Dark Aubrey Groves writes about the Camden Market in North London set on and around the canal.

“It is full of trendy stalls with some of the wackier designer clothes, music, hippyesque handicrafts from around the World, antiques, and an excellent array of cheap food stalls reflecting London´s multiculturalism.”

Anuradha Shankar of a Wandering Mind writes about the historical Hampi Bazaar in South India

“From gold and diamonds to horses and cows, the markets boasted of a variety which impressed even visitors from foreign shores! These marketplaces weren’t like our roadside shops, but well planned and well laid out areas, paved with stones, with residences for the merchants as well stables for their mounts!”

Erin Ridley of La tortuga Viajera writes about Madrid’s markets – about El Rastro, a popular market in Madrid’s oldest neighbourhoods as well as about the Mercados which she says are a hybrid between grocery stores and farmers markets.

“Spanish fans, stinky cheeses, fanny packs, fresh fruit, wine by the glass and of course antiques. Madrid’s markets have something for everyone – and a market for everyone.”

Julie from a Lady in London explores more than one market at Lady goes to Market She takes us to the Boroughs market, the Exmouth market, the Leadenhall market as well as to the Camden market.

“There are at least four vendors selling ten different kinds of fresh olives, multiple bread bakers, a handful of specialized cheese shops, two wine stores, a smoothie bar, and a Scottish meat counter. Free samples are given generously, and one could eat an entire meal on bits and pieces alone.”

Louise Heal writes of the La Boqueria – Barcelona’s premier food market

“La Boqueria also does a great line in bars and restaurants. It's not a place for a full meal, rather for a tapas selection of whatever-takes-your-fancy or whatever the chef is doing today. The chalk blackboard menus are testimony to the changing selection.”

Barbara Weibel of Hole in the Donut Cultural Travel describes for us her walk along the Mekong river in Chiang Khong, Thailand.

“In the center of town, vendors sprung up along either side of the street in an unbroken line that stretched as far as I could see. Not the normal trinket sellers, these vendors specialized in food. Plump, fresh fruits. Glistening piles of hot peppers in red, green, and orange. Gelatinous sweets coated in shredded coconut. Piles of wide, flat noodles – phat sie eww – coated in black bean sauce and piled with fresh veggies. An astounding display of culinary delights that stretched for a mouth-watering mile.”

Jeff Funnekotter of the Big City Blog tells us about the Albert Cuyp market - a Street market in Amsterdam that started in 1904.

“The characters are real-life, seasoned market-hawkers - mostly very friendly, some gruff, always authentic and fair (this is not one of those markets where you haggle).”

Charlotte Beauvoisin of Kampala days – diary of a muzungu writes about two markets in Uganda, in the Human Safari and all its smells and in Justice in the balancing act

“Saturday evening leaving the Old Taxi Park is as crazy an African scene as you’re going to encounter. It’s exhausting. People call at you from all sides, traffic – bikes, boda bodas and matatus – come at you from every direction simultaneously. People and vehicles groan under the collective weight of their wares and purchases.”

At any time, there is as much to discover in our own world as in another part of the world. And yet, we yearn to travel and to explore territories we know little about outside of where we live. What then? You come back to where you started and find that more than anything else, you’ve discovered a way of looking that you did not know before!

Hoping that readers will share their own experiences of the marketplace, their discoveries and their insights!

Thanks to all those who’ve contributed to this Blog Carnival! The posts included here are from participants in the Lonely Planet Blogsherpa programme that includes the Best Travel Bloggers from around the world selected by Lonely Planet. Do check out the  previous Blog Carnival hosted by Nina Fuentes on the theme Has traveling changed you. The next Blog carnival will be announced here soon!

Read about:
Fish market at Sasoon Docks
Flower market in Mumbai
Udaipur City
Bollywood Posters