Hay Market blurb

Tucked into the dense blocks of small neighboring bars and restaurants, Hay Market seems nothing but a tiny nook within the small city of Boston. This is the city’s great outdoor market, where you can buy everything fresh: from fruits and vegetables to exotic spices, and fish, just straight off the boat. It is everything your typical supermarket is not—cheap, loud, and in your face. As if the city’s traffic sound waves have not penetrated enough through this exuberant maze of a marketplace—it could be the obnoxious Bostonians roaring from the central artery, or it could be that all the vendors are simply tone deaf. Vendors tend to shout their wares. Like a pair of squawking crows, they yell at each other, endlessly repeating their duets as they try to entice customers; sometimes to get more produce to the stand, maybe even to one-up each other…and the traffic. The goal is to get the jostling pedestrians to stop, look, and hopefully purchase.
On the corner of Marshall and Blackstone streets, its peak of activity falls only on Thursday through Saturdays from about 7 AM till 5 PM. Contrary to the loud, self-promoting vendors in the midst of a lively mob of produce buyers, on days like Sundays where everything tends to slow down for everyone, it is nothing different than the day after a New Year’s celebration in Times Square, New York: silent, streets riddled with rubbish and remnants of fruits and vegetables smashed into the pavement that were once wholesome and succulent to the eyes.
It was quite breezy on that Sunday evening when I went, having gone to Hay Market only three times in my lifetime (all three times fell on a Saturday, if I remembered correctly), unknowing of the schedule of open stalls, my anticipation of bustling souls moving about in the market as I peeked around the corner of the subway entrance, soon became a disheartened sight. A sudden nostalgia of Christmas day, eight years old: running down the stairway as fast as my stubby legs could carry one foot over the other, and as fast as my tiny hands could place onto the largest box of present written ‘To Jonathan: from Santa,’ unmerciful clawing and tearing away of the neatly wrapped box in hopes to uncover the long awaited Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle action figure set (the one that comes with the turtle truck and secret hiding place). Only to find a green wool sweater and a pair of striped tube socks.
It was barren. I even did a double-take to see if I was in the correct location, not to mention I went into tourist mode and unfolded the 11x17 aerial map I had printed out. The area was much unexpected, and the slow, but unforgiving breezes placed well in the lethargic mood. Maybe I haven’t been here for a while, or maybe I should really take the time to explore more of Boston’s nooks and crannies, but if I were to walk here another day along the same streets, anything but the overhead sign indicating ‘Hay Market Pizza’ would not have come to my attention.
Though not as high-spirited as I expected to be, I was glad to be immersed in a plethora of a material pallet. Be it a photographer, an artist, or even a designer [architect], you cannot help but to appreciate what this marketplace has to offer in its naked state. As I walked from the Hay Market T station, just as I stepped onto market area, I was welcomed with a crosswalk consisting of bronze fruit peels and other detritus smashed onto pavement, which reminded me of Mags Harries’s bronze depiction of a gathering of stray gloves, tumbling down between the (infinite) escalators in the Porter Square T station, in Cambridge.
It felt like a gateway to a Boston where the great quality of products one is trying to sell, does not necessarily have to reflect the appearance of his/her storefront. Having to walk underneath the eroded steel and worn out wood overhang that connects from store to store was an uneasy task—I was actually waiting for a piece to fall on me. What also interested me was that, it was also a gateway to a joining of cultures—how many places are we aware of to have the Middle-East, Italy, India, and Ireland all on the same street? The old brick buildings that held together these markets are masked by a series of corroded and tainted metal plate, garage-door like entrances—on nights if I were to walk passed during after hours, I would have guessed these were individual public storage facilities. For those storefronts that did not have metal-plated doors, showed displays of graffiti on their chipped wooden facades. Even on the brick facades had signs of water-damaged erosion, though, much to my surprise had a somewhat enchanting green-blue hue. What attracted me to the marketplace the most was its concept of grittiness as a whole—and even in its current conditions people do not seem to mind, and has some how made that parcel into its own natural habitat of delivering some of the most freshest produce.
Hay Market is also a public threshold of smells. The sense of smell would probably be the most sensitive of the five senses, other than sight as you circulate through the marketplace. It was almost as if specific parts of the parcel had its unique scent. Store fronts such as the meat and fish markets are mostly recognizable by its raw scent. Passing the pizza market, hunger might entail, and you’re almost unconsciously succumbing yourself into the sweetened scent of tomato, dough and pepperoni. As you head down towards the Middle-Eastern and Indian markets, the scent does not seem to reveal itself until you walk downstairs, that is when your nose starts to travel through the Cardamom, Tumeric, and Sumac spices, not to mention the ever-so aromatic carrot and pomegranate soaps. Just as you walk across the main road and onto the greenery where a lot of the stalls and crates are stored in poorly secured metal fences—the area quickly transitions from decadent scents of produce and spices turns into stomach churning, not so much for the faint of heart, smells of malt liquor and urine.
In its barest state, Hay market presents itself a unique character. It exposes many of its hidden beauties which can be a pallet for many design inspirations.

-Jon

SITE VISIT: HAYMARKET SQ

PUBLIC MARKET PLACE:
SITE VISIT: HAYMARKET SQ
9/20/08 6PM-7PM


Smells:

Aged/rotted fruit
Fish
Exhaust
Trash trucks
Barfood smell increasing overtime as people populate the area more

Sounds:

Haggling over prices
Vendors yelling prices, advertising freshness and quality
Vehicles (increasing over time as more people start to go out to dinner/bars)
Me being yelled at by a muslim man for taking his picture (not allowed in Quran)
Many different accents/languages
Laughter
Parents yelling at kids
Children crying
Music from bars getting louder, same with music emitted from cars: news, latin music, rock, hip hop, sports
Cameras flashing/going off
Cell phones and people talking on them
me talking to old people about picture taking, one of the old women hit on me, gave a nervous laugh, took pic and bolted like nobodies business

Sights:

· Migrations:
1. Market place to T
2. T to home
3. T to clubs/bars/entertainment
4. North End to Faneuil to Quincy Market to Beacon Hill and vice versa
· Transition form night to day
· Rust on sculpture shows change over time weathering same with patinas on cornices of buildings
· Leaves changing color because of season and climate
· Population increasing
· More groups than individual people
· Clothing on people become more formal/night wear than earlier
· People transitioning from shopping to eating/drinking going out:entertainment
· Vendors are doing the inverse of shoppers, selling not buying all within the same space
· Lots of tourists
· Lots of back and forth between neighborhoods
· Greenway occupied by people, walking, talking, sitting, picture taking, enjoying the view of the skyline, relaxing on the grass, reflecting, dog walking
· Lights of/on surrounding buildings create accents ie neon signs, accent lighting on building cornices/edges create depth
· Darkness (not lit by accent lighting or street lights) softens hard edges of buildings, not as pronounced
· Street lights punctuating the sidewalk at intervals, stages creating specific moments in time, dark area is transition between two points
· Boundaries: overhead garage at edge of Haymarket and Bulfinch triangle separates two neighborhoods visually and physically, State Street is buffered from North End and Bulfinch triangle by Quincy Market (financial separated from sports by entertainment/shopping)
· T is are located at intersections/transitions of the nodes (neighborhood) serve as points of reference/landmarks

Feeling:

· Breeze/cool air more pronounced as night rolls in
· T underground vibrating
· Days getting shorter, can tell that autum is here, meaning school starts, the World Series and the NFL
· I feel alone even though I’m surrounded by many people, blend into the crowd
· Reminds me of Kari Bazar/Αγια Μαρινα (Agia Marina) in Tsotyli (town next to my village in Greece that has an open air market a few times a year on certain holidays), nostalgic, comforting
· Similar to Agora in Athens and Kozani, Roman forum, Bezasten/bazaar, people hawking wears, stores in the commercial Circus Maximus known as Quincy Market, along with street entertainment and people preaching
· Not overpowered by the scale of the architecture even in the financial district or government center.

Haymarket 2-5 Sat.

As I step out of the Haymarket T station I notice a young woman carrying a bag stuffed with indistinguishable goods, almost immediately her bag splits slightly and lemons spill out on to the pavement rolling like pinballs. I’ve never been to the market before so I meander for a moment before the smell of raw fish draws me around the corner. Approaching from the north the first thing I saw was an extraordinary amount of trash. A couple of men are working diligently around the pile, their efforts seemed futile. The pile grows quicker than they are capable of cleaning. The bombardment of odors reminds me of going to work with my father as a child; he managed a produce terminal in Houston. The streets and sidewalks are crawling with both venders and customers yelling back and forth, vendors shout prices, quantities and type of goods. The tents and stands line the street creating a hustling bustling shantytown. It is difficult making my way through the crawdad narrow aisles. The space is so limited that travel is designated for you there are no lines of desire or places to rome. Walk, buy, or get the hell out of the way. Some of the paving types create difficult negotiations. My initial pass through was a little overwhelming so I quickly sought refuge in the North End Park directly across the street to the north. After gathering my thoughts and taking some notes I reentered the bazaar. There is some open space adjacent to the market that is not being utilized; an unfortunate boundary has been created along this common edge by the placement of barriers and fencing. This space is a waste land lying in between the park and market, because of its relationship to the other spaces it is an empty awkward place. Along the other edge of the market is a strange juxtaposition of buildings and narrow alleyways comprised mostly of bars restaurants and sub level shops, it has a pleasant old world feeling. The crowd is very diverse I heard a number of different languages; many cultures are represented within this small parcel of land. The vendor demographic is just as diverse. Each vendor does things slightly different from one another some stand on pallets some use pallets to display goods some have stand scales some have suspended scales no two operations are exactly the same. Some of the vendors are polite and accommodating, making suggestions about specific goods and others aren’t so forgiving, one yells “can I help you ladies because you can’t help yourselves, whose next”. The amount of plastic bags is amazing, vendors provide them for customers that have not brought their own, one woman had a canvas bag full of plastic bags. I even observed an individual selling bags for a dollar a piece. After spending about an hour or so submerged in the market culture I decided to stop in The Point and have several two dollar drafts, the patrons inside were completely oblivious to the busy market on the other side of the glass. While sitting at the bar a couple vendors came in for a beer, judging by the reception of the bar staff the two men are regulars. After overhearing the two discuss business for a minute, I took the opportunity to ask a couple of questions. One man owns his plot and the other rents, both men get there produce from a place in Chelsea and both have regular weekly jobs. The men seemed excited about the idea of redesigning the market but neither one really had any suggestions other than needing more room, in the case of the vendors space itself has become a commodity. Jason Futrell

Monday Evening 6-7pm Sept. 22, 2008

I rode the T from Harvard Square (red line) to Haymarket (green line) during commuter traffic on a Monday evening after work. The sky was overcast and there was a slight chill in the air.  The green line was packed with people and most of them got off at Haymarket.  I walked with the crew up the stairs to Surface Street.  There were many buses awaiting people and a lot of people just passing by.  I located my bearings and headed towards the site.  Other than a map in hand and a slight memory of being there before, I would of walked right by the site.  There was not much of a "market" going on except for the remnants of what was a market.  There were a strip of stores that were open, but I could not tell if it was the front of the store or the rear.  Some had stairs that led down while others just opened up to a room filled with products.  I did not feel like I was in Boston for a slight moment, but back in South America or Italy.  There was a smell that filled the air in this area, but I couldn't put my finger on it.  Was it produce, cardboard, or maybe trash? The sun was trying to peak out and setting at the same time.  I walked next to the concrete dividers and the shops trying to get a feel of what the area was all about. I saw some trash on the ground and rain puddles that had formed.  Across the road was the greenway and fountains that caught my attention.  Some buses were parked on the road and looked like tourist buses.  Some people were walking around, some running, but most walking and talking on their cell phones.  

I walked back around and headed down Hanover Street which was a brick and cobblestone road.  There were many bars and restaurants on this street and I turned off it to wander through the ally. (Hoping it was safe.)  It lead me to some sketchy people, but I quickly turned down another ally, which eventually led me back out to the "market" area.  

All in all, I guess I was pretty disappointed that I was not able to see the market and I plan to get back there when this is going on.  

I was able to see some unique architecture and beautiful views.  Afterwards, I sat next to the fountain, people watched and sketched the Boston Skyline of highrise buildings behind, what seemed like, old town Boston.  (the site)

Haymarket, Sunday 2-5pm

Christine Addison-Site Visit Observations

I began my visit by parking at the public parking garage across from Faneuil Market. As I was driving around trying to score street parking, I was able to get an idea of what the surrounding areas were like. It was sunny and warm so there were plenty of people walking around. The restaurants were serving meals outside and there were people camped out on benches reading the newspaper in just about any available public bench.

At exactly 2:00 I parked my car, leashed my dogs and made my way towards the market. Being that it was my first Haymarket experience, I didn't know what to expect. I was hoping to load up on fresh vegetables, haggle with the produce vendors and get something to eat and drink. I made it over to Blackstone straining my neck in all directions looking for my first vendor interaction only to find that what I was hoping to find was not there, nor would be there that day. I was more confused than disappointed. Was the entrance somewhere else? Was the market actually nestled into some obscure alleyway? I was excited that this may turn out to be some sort of treasure hunt where I may actually score more than just a nectarine or peach.

As I made my way down the sidewalk, there was one sole vendor open selling a very limited supply of produce set up on a table outside of his meat market. All of the other storefronts were closed. The metal doors were all drawn down and padlocked. There was no vendor tending to the produce so the fruit on the table was as lonely as the dirty sidewalk. My initial excitement started to wane as the reality of the brutal truth was right before my eyes. No fruit, no haggling, the market does not exist on Sundays. I wasn't even sure if I was in the right place. I did see evidence of fruit and vegetables scattered, rotted and smashed in the crevices of the road, gutters, and brick paving but along with the lingering smell of rotted food. I felt like I missed the party.

I made it down the sidewalk to the Irish pub where a waitresses was having a cigarette break. She was the only person in sight. I approached her in order to figure out what was going on. She was kind enough to speak to me for a minute informing me that the market is only open on Fridays and Saturdays. A couple of guys stumbled out of the pub. The shorter one had a big old shiner. Must have been a good party. The waitress described where the market was set up and went back inside. She also made it a point to say where the market wasn't. She was sure to point out that over there was the North End and over here was Haymarket.

I continued down the sidewalk and turned the corner onto Hanover St. There was more evidence of market remains scattered and smashed into the bricks. I turned up into the little ally and spoke to a few more wait staffers at the other Irish pub. They basically corroborated the smoke breakers information and scuttled back to work. They were a little more descriptive in trying to explain the layout of how the market was laid out. The explained that the tents and vendors were actually set up in the street. That was some helpful information. I had assumed on my own that the sidewalk and the ally was where the action was. Now I could imagine a larger space and a lot more vendors and farmers.

As I made my way back down Blackstone, I walked along the Jersey barriers and climbed around the vendor storage behind the chain link fencing trying to use my imagination as to how the temporary structures were erected. There were hundreds of blue pallets, wood sawhorses, 4x4 posts with thousands of staples rusted into the wood, plastic blue tarps, artificial grass, recycle bins, and stackable produce bins. There really didn't seem to be any sort of organizational order to how things were arranged. It seemed all slammed together at the very last minute.

I made a few sketches, took some pictures, and headed back to the car with the dogs at around 2:50 or so. I am curious to see some of the other observations with the presence of life. Should be interesting!

Haymarket visit- Dan Hall

My time slot for the site visit was from 8-10 pm Saturday night. I arrived at about 8:15 and was just in time to see the final parts of the cleanup. My initial reaction to arrival on the site was – is this it? I arrived to see empty and dark streets. The smell was very memorable as well – imagine walking in a field of rotten tomatoes and that’s about the scent that was wafting through the air. On Hanover St. a front-end loader was loading the remaining trash from the market into the back of dump trucks that hauled the trash to who knows where. The wheels of the tractors and trucks were spinning on the streets that were slick with a “market slime” concoction. The street was actually a bit slippery to walk on as well. Street sweepers were running up and down Hanover St. behind the tractors as they did the finer cleaning after the bulk trash was hauled away.
All of the overhead doors of the markets on Blackstone St. were closed, and there were several workers hanging out on the sidewalks loading things into and out of trucks and just taking breaks. Blackstone St. was totally deserted except for the above mentioned workers and a few fork-lifts hauling and stacking pallets in the fenced off area inside the jersey barriers.
Pedestrians were moving along Hanover St. and I heard several exclamations of dismay at having to walk through the grime that coated the sidewalks and street. At this point Hanover St. was serving as a thoroughfare between the North End and the restaurants on Union and Marshall St. I spied a few empty orange cartons and some stray ears of corn but the clean-up seemed to be pretty efficient.
I walked behind Haymarket in the back alley that comes out on Creek Square and nothing was going on back there. There were cars parked in a small parking lot behind the back entrances to the markets on Blackstone St. so I assume people were still inside cleaning up. I felt like I was on a movie set in a studio when I walked through the back alley. There was a little bit of a breeze and some paper trash was blowing around like tumbleweed in a western ghost town.
I was also struck by the connection that Hanover St. seemed to provide between the parks in the open space over the rt. 93 tunnels and the North End, and the bustling restaurant and bar scene of Union St. and Congress St. Everybody was using it as the most direct route although they seemed to hurry through Hanover St. not wanting to stay long in the uncomfortable darkness and dirtiness.
Overall the Haymarket that I saw was not a very welcoming place – it was hard to picture the bustling market place that it must be in the daytime. It’s amazing what kind of transformations a flexible space like this can go through.

Alicia Ardon Haymarket visit description

Alicia Ardon
C-Studio
A walk through Haymarket

As you walk up to Haymarket, you slowly start noticing people grouped up with in the space. Tents are up with a variety of different things out to sell. The vendors are yelling out to every one hoping someone will buy their products. Up early in the morning setting up their tents waiting for the morning crowd to buy starting at 6 A.M. You start notice the different cultures and languages that surround you. Small path ways lead the crowd around from stand to stand, some selling the same things others selling different. People bumping into each other not apologizing, some in a rush others just wondering around. It seems as though rush hour adds an effect to the commotion at 5 P.M. Work is out and people want be able to get their produce quick and go home. College students stand around, asking each other if they need any thing to bring back to their dorms. Noise comes from the cars coming from the Surface Artery Street that lays parallel to the market. From the market place you can see parcel 8 of the green way with it's green landscape as people walk along the side walk and through it. At the street edge of Haymarket, trash trucks come and the vendors start to pile their empty produce boxes up. As I first came in, I could smell fruit and vegetables, now I smell garbage, a lot of it. Behind the tents lay boxes and boxes of different fruits and vegetables ready to be put on to the stands as they sell. Vendors start to bargain with prices as they are ready and eager to pack up and leave. You seeing the sellers and the buyers interacting with one another, making deals and handling money. If you try to talk to the vendors, they are busy acting quick and interrupting your conversation to try to get peoples attention in the crowd as they try to sell something. They tell you that two times a week ( Friday and Saturday) 52 weeks a year is enough for them, but they profit from selling their products pretty well otherwise they wouldn't be there. As you walk around Haymarket, it is surrounded by tall skyscrapers where you see brick, concrete, stone and glass where other buildings are reflecting off of one another. As you walk around the area, you notice the groups of people making noise and having fun at the bars around the corner. The alley along side the market place have people walking up and down it to get through. Standing in the middle of the path ways with in the market place causes disturbance in the pedestrian traffic flow. Take a picture and you have people wanting to get in or out of it. Being in the Haymarket place made me feel unorganized, rushed, and not being able to concentrate on one thing because there is just so much going on at once in such a small compacted space. One vendor stated that the redesign on Haymarket would be the one thing they need, it is an atomic bomb as of right now.

Welcome

Welcome, BAC students, to the official Public/Market Studio blog. We will use this space to post descriptions of our site-visit experiences, and to communicate in other ways about the studio. Feel free to use this blog in experimental ways to communicate with you instructors or studio mates, to offer comments about the work, the way the studio is going, etc. It's an open forum!

Please sign off each blog with your name, so we know who's talking.

-jenni