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Blog 10: Interview with Robert Thomas

Interviewing Robert Thomas Last Thursday, Calvin and I interviewed Robert Thomas, the head of the Lexington Market, for an hour.   He was charming and very talkative.   We covered a fair amount of ground although I wished we had a little more time.   I found him thoughtful and responsive to questions.   He has a pretty clear vision of what he wants the market to be like, although he is realistic about the challenges, particularly in the environment outside the market.      Toward the end of the interview, I asked what his vision for the new market is and he responded:      It’s not even so much what the market looks like but how it functions. And how it functions is as a market that’s welcoming to people all up and down the socio-economic scale who are moving in and out seamlessly. We’re offering things that people want from a quick sandwich, to the regular comfort food, to things a little more exotic.   We’re offering spices and things, and ingredients.   I’m learnin
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Blog 9: Listening to Interviews and thinking about Zine 2

Reflections on Interviews After listening to the new interviews, I was struck by overall how positive interviews were.    For example, Carol Harris, the pop-up cake lady, came there as a kid, always wanted to have a business there and seemed really happy about the plans.   Larry Brenner, the peanut guy, was on the Merchant Advisory Committee and knew about the plans.   He came across as less enthused, but still committed to the business and the Market, wanting to expand hours and get more diverse food options.   The customers, except the woman from Pittsburgh, were long-time customers and also seemed committed to the market.    I particularly liked these: Tyrone Speace: “Once upon a time on an early Saturday morning like this you wouldn’t have walking room in the market, it would be so crowded like.   It’s kind of a shame cause uh it used to be a meeting place for people, like where it was almost like spiritual you come and meet your friends and hang out for the top o
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Blog 8: Folding Zine Pages and old Letters to the Editor of the Sun

Zine, Production Run 2 I spent some time Tuesday working on the second run of the zine – 20 copies this time.    Dr. King and Markele had figured out the hard part last week, so all I had to do was fold.   Markele did most of the work – trimming, collating, and stapling pages.   It looks even better than last time.   I suspect we will quickly run out. Looking for material for the second zine When I got home, I went through the historical Baltimore Sun to see if I could find anything interesting in the Letters to the Editor.   Some were fun – mainly because the older ones are a lot more colorful than anything that makes it into print these days.   My favorite was a man named George Haulenbeek who had 9 letters published between 1914 and 1919.    His biggest year was 1915 when he had three.   In the second, he railed against a Lexington Market vendor who had sold him a box of strawberries in which bad berries were hidden under good ones.   He ends by saying: The ma
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