Lucy Tobias

Welcome to Pike Place Market, Seattle, where the word “merge” takes on whole new levels. The Market, and the surrounding area, is like a mini-United Nations, a common ground where cultures congregate and do commerce.

Homeless people and low-income families jostle with urbanites fresh out of their SUVs and with their morning workouts behind them. Street musicians play guitars and harmonicas, leaving their instrument cases open on the ground for tips.

Farmers hawk their wares in many languages, enticing walkers with free samples – a slice of a peach or piece of apple.

Flower vendors set out breathtaking bouquets. All the shutterbugs go for the flowers, going for free visual samples.

Two women vendors look at each other, speaking in what sounds like Japanese. Maybe it translates like this: “if we charged to take pictures we’d be rich.”

Pike Place Market started on August 17, 1907, as a revolt against the cost of onions. Between 1906 and 1907 onion prices went up ten fold. It was a big stink. One city councilman wanted a public market where the farmer would connect directly with customers – cut out the price-enlarging middlemen.

Eight farmers showed up that August day and sold produce out of the back of their wagons. By 11 a.m. The wagons were empty and many customers went home empty-handed – an estimated 10,000 shoppers showed up. By the end of 1907, Pike Place Market officially opened with every space filled.

Today, just as in 1907, the day use concept still works. Farmers, crafts people, flower vendors show up, you are assigned a stall. Never mind that you and your family has been in the same stall for years, you still have to show up and get your day use permit.

The Market has become bigger than life, not only a place to buy vegetables but also a place to learn life lessons.

On August 4, 2005, the day I visited the Market, a group of men and women wearing white jackets are clustered around one end of a produce stall. Their jackets have mandarin collars and the words “Culinary Institute” stitched on the left side where a pocket would go.

An instructor is explaining the finer points of making mushroom soup, and how to pick mushrooms. Today they’re taking class al fresco. Tomorrow the would-be chefs will be market customers, to the farmer’s delight.

The booth where the students get their mushroom lesson has long memories for me. Years ago, Seattle was home. Pregnant with my second child, the Market was my favorite food-shopping destination.

An older gentleman who used to run that stall had an amazing trick – he could break an apple cleanly in two on his knee. He’d see me coming, pick up an apple and break it on his knee, then offer me first one half, then the other.

“Here, one for you and one for the bambino,” he’d say, nodding to my tummy.

About that time, the Market was in danger of being bulldozed over to make waterfront condominiums. Locals, including your columnist, worked long and hard to save it. Salvation happened and now it is a landmark, a tourist destination, and the hub of a local community that includes apartments for low-income elderly right alongside high-priced apartments with pricey views of Elliott Bay.

As always, people make the Market. Like the staff at Pike Place Fish Company that are famous for throwing fish. By 11 a.m. every morning there’s a large crowd of tourists. Some lean against Rachael, the metal sculpture pig that is the most photographed item next to the flowers.

“Hey, one salmon going to Missouri,” shouts a fish worker, throwing a salmon to the back to be wrapped. He’s already asked the customer where he’s from. The crowd roars.
A delightful business survival manual called “Fish” was written about these fish guys who came up with a simple four-point philosophy – be there, make someone’s day, choose your attitude and oh yes, play. That’s where throwing the fish comes in.
It works.

As the fish hawkers make someone’s day, down the block street drifters stretch out to sun themselves in the Victor Steinbrueck Park. A ferry cuts through Puget Sound, heading for the terminal. It is flanked by Coast Guard cutters carrying machine guns, a sign of the terrorist times.

Late risers get a latte, grab a seat in a bakery or coffee shop and read the morning paper- who’s in, who’s out, who’s not applying for a job. The Supervisor of Elections job in Seattle was posted. No one applied. People think it could be a career breaker after last year’s election where the numbers for the tight governor’s race kept changing depending on who was counting.

Drive-by photographers go slowly and snap the original Starbucks sign outside the first Starbucks coffee shop that opened in 1971. The logo features a mermaid designed on the racy side. She was changed to be more politically correct, and that made the original logo famous.

I walk along, breathing in the vibrancy, the color, the sights, the sounds, the people, and the memories. Pike Place Market is as wonderful now as it was years ago when a vendor cracked an apple in two for the bambino and me.