Something strange is afoot in the 6th Avenue vicinity (a.k.a. my hood). On Tuesday afternoons, this neighborhood, which I had hitherto assumed to be populated only by very big TVs, suddenly brims with human life. From a bird’s-eye view, my newly animate neighbors and I must look like an industrious ant colony, swarms of us marching toward Engine House No. 9 with empty baskets, full strollers, and wads of reusable bags, and marching back home again with full everything: bags, baskets, bellies, and strollers (well, let’s hope). We busy ants have discovered a reason to leave the safety of our well worn couches: the 6th Avenue Market.
I have walked all these streets before, from Stadium to Proctor to the ghetto to the south and the ghetto to the west. Had these streams of sauntering twenty- to thirty- to seventy-somethings been here before, I would have seen them. I had no idea.
They are a delightful sort of ambling crowd, the kind that goes out walking when there is actually a decent destination, reachable on foot, straight from their doorsteps. What finally got my Central comrades out the door was nothing more complex than some fresh produce. Of course, we all could have tied our laces and stepped out for a $12 cocktail and $30 steak a long time ago, but that, my friends, is not much of a draw, especially for we who dwell south of 6th. We who dwell south of 6th are not made of money. In fact, many of us are not even made of the desire to be made of money.
So bless the 6th Ave Market. And bless the folks who decided on the night-owl-friendly time slot, because for those of us whose days finally lift off somewhere in the one or two o’ clock hour, all the other farmers markets, with their 2 p.m. tear-down time, are very redundant reminders of the many little failures we slackers will meet in life.
Nobody needs that. Hoorah, 6th Ave Market!
