Tailor booth, Essex Street Market

Tailor booth, Essex Street Market
Originally uploaded by rllayman

Maybe one way to help a public market stay neighborhood-focused rather than get touristified is to allow other neighborhood services like tailors and shoe repair etc. to locate there, presumably at lower than outside-of-the-market-based rents.

The big problem with Eastern Market is that the space is limited. It can't add new vendors, new ways of reaching new market segments, because the space is fixed, and because the "North Hall" is a gallery-theater.

I have been a strong supporter of Market 5 Gallery, because I think it is the primary reason that Eastern Market is a diverse place, one of the only places in the City of Washington where people of all races and income levels mix.

But the food part of the Market needs to grow, or it's going to continue to get its clock cleaned market-wise, especially as Harris-Teeter opens supermarkets east and west of Eastern Market.

And there is a great auditorium at Hine Junior High School that is barely ever used, and almost never used at night.

Granted that Hine is going away somehow.

But if there were a "master plan" for the Eastern Market District, then this could be figured out so that the whole is greater than the current sum of the parts now.