There's a nice little story in the Los Angeles Times this morning about the original Farmers Market, at Fairfax and 3rd, celebrating its 75th anniversary this week. There's even a slideshow.
The Farmers Market is no greenmarket — though farmers do come with fresh produce on Fridays and Saturdays — but more of an odd encampment of stores and restaurants and food counters all strung together in a patchwork way. It's a fun, relaxed, somewhat kitschy oasis in what can be a stifling, never-too-thin-or-rich desert town. (Note, as evidence, The Grove shopping center next door.)
Though I must admit, when it comes to Los Angeles open-air markets, my heart belongs to the Grand Central Market downtown. An eclectic but more organized enterprise, it occupies the ground floor of the Homer Laughlin Building on S. Broadway, off 4th Street, which, as the GCM web site points out, once housed an office of Frank Lloyd Wright.
The Grand Central Market dates to 1917 — that's 92 years to the Farmers Market's 75, by my calculatin' — and there's a hum and an agenda to the place that's more to my taste. Instead of shops with windchimes or 200 varieties of hot sauce, there is row after row of gorgeous produce and fresh seafood, followed by bins upon bins of whole and ground spices, coffee beans, you name it.
Oh, and the lunch counters... I wish I had taken notes the last time I was there with my sister, a few years ago, but I believe that instead of grilled fish — in the sublime, entirely legit taco I ordered for under $6 — tongue and pigs feet were also options.
If the stools along the counters all have bottoms in them, there's an area with tables, and sawdust on the floor, where you can settle in with your taco, or the watermelon you've convinced a vendor to slice open for you. And afterward, stepping out into the sun, full and happy, you're treated to still another Los Angeles icon: the Angels Flight. Known as "the shortest railway in the world," it opened in 1901 to carry Los Angelinos up and down Bunker Hill, shortening the commute between the downtown markets below and the financial district above.
The lore I'd always heard was that at some point a cable snapped, the trolley car crashed down the hill, and someone died. (I'm short on research time this morning, so I'll leave that for you to investigate.) According to this site, however, the Angels Flight seems to have been restored and reopened, and from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m., for a fare of 25 cents, you can (cheez alert!) visit the city of angels' favorite namesake.
i have fond (though probably over-romanticized) memories of the gumbo pot, where i spent many a lunch hour. more beignets please!
ReplyDeleteAs the Market's publicist, I thought you'd be interested in knowing that there is a strong link between the Farmers Market and Grand Central Market.
ReplyDeleteIn the summer of 1934, when the Market had just opened, Blanche Magee and her husband Raymond had several stands at the Grand Central Market. I think they'd opened in 1917 there.
Blanche had been somewhat ill that summer and was taking it easy at their home near 3rd & Fairfax.
One afternoon, she noticed a group of farmers selling their produce from the backs of their trucks at the corner of 3rd & Fairfax. She wandered over and discovered that many of the farmers were friends of hers, suppliers to her restaurant downtown.
The farmers, many of whom were looking down the barrel of bankruptcy because it was the height of the Great Depression, told Blanche and Raymond how scared they were, praying this venture would work. The Magees gave as much encouragement as possible, telling the farmers it was going to work. The Magees truly believed it would because it was already catching on.
To encourage them further, Blanche would prepare foods from the goods they sold downtowun, bringing hampers of sandwiches, meats and other goodies.
One afternoon, a woman shopper asked Blanche to sell her some of Blanche's ham. Blanche said it wasn't for sale, it was for her friends. The woman became irate and more or less demanded some of that ham.
Blanche didn't even know what to charge her but finally fixed on 10 cents and sold the ham to the woman. Within a few days, Blanche, never one to back down from an entrepreneurial challenge, went to the owners of the land where the farmers rented space for their trucks and said she thought a restaurant would go very well with this new farmers market.
The owners agreed and so Magee's became the first restaurant at the Market in that same summer of 1934 and has been there ever since. Today it is owned and faithfully run by her daughter-in-law Phyllis.
Thanks for celebrating the Market's 75th.
Best,
Sydney Weisman