An experiment in Bronzeville

OUTDOOR MARKET | City to give expanded 'hybrid' model try in South Side community

Chicago's Bronzeville neighborhood is getting a whole new outdoor market this summer with crowder peas, jerk chicken sandwiches and live music, in addition to the standard fresh fruits and vegetables.

For the first time this summer, the City of Chicago is backing a new concept called a "hybrid market" and it's letting Bronzeville try out the idea with help from local supporters. By offering a greater variety of foods and merchandise than a prior farmer's market in the neighborhood, the organizers hope the new Bronzeville Community Market will draw more people.

"One of the reasons we're doing this is because residents said they would like to see other things at the market," said Bernita Johnson-Gabriel, the executive director of Quad Communities Development Corp., a local non-profit charged with building community and business in the neighborhood that's helping start the market.

The aim is to have a "mini-festival every Sunday," Johnson-Gabriel said. The new market will open June 15 in a lot at 44th Street and Cottage Grove Avenue, just a couple of miles from the Dunbar Vocational High School location where a city's farmer's market last year failed to draw enough farmers or customers. The city will break with past policy and let the new market offer goods other than locally grown produce.

The city has historically backed only markets that gave urban dwellers locally grown produce in a dual effort to give a boost to the state's farmers, screening out non-food merchandise as well as wholesale or prepared food.

"We're all about local," said Yescenia Mota, program coordinator for the Mayor's Office of Special Events, who oversees farmer's markets.

That attitude has led many neighborhoods, including Logan Square, to create independent markets where they can sell additional items. Paul Levin, the executive director of the Logan Square Chamber of Commerce, which helps run that market, believes the city's experimenting in Bronzeville is a positive step.

"Chicago's system has figured out that they need to do more to attract more people to the market," Levin said.

While Johnson-Gabriel is hopeful the Bronzeville market will be a model for other neighborhoods, the city will force it to fend for itself as an independent market next year.

When QCDC, which works in North Kenwood, Douglas, Oakland and Grand Boulevard neighborhoods, proposed the hybrid market last year, the city went along, figuring the local support could help revitalize a 29-year-old market that has languished in recent years.

To find out what people in the area wanted from a market, QCDC surveyed 200 residents and held focus groups. In addition to food, most shoppers asked for activities such as cooking demonstrations and musical performances.

"Every farmer's market model depends on the neighborhood, so this is a unique model for this neighborhood," said Veronica Reza, a spokeswoman for the city.

So far, the new local organizers have lined up eight fruit and vegetable sellers, some of whom will haul produce from Southern states like Georgia and Mississippi to give buyers an earlier taste in the season of some items, such as corn and watermelon, and other items, such as peas and okra, that are scarcer in the Northern climate. The city also has given organizers leeway to supplement the market with produce from resellers who aren't necessarily tapping local growers.

There also will be two bakeries, one meat vendor and a seller of wine and mead. Jewelry, clothing, candles and lotion sellers will be allowed at the market, too. Local organizers expect that Cottage Grove Avenue area businesses, such as a coffeehouse, African art store and shoe shop, will get more business, too. And the Mongo antique market will join in the second Sunday of every month.

Lynne Marek is a locally based free-lance writer.