Dear Caroline:
We gratefully acknowledge your recent efforts to secure a competent manager for the New Maxwell Street Market, and your ongoing work to create a flourishing market for the city's people. You and others on your staff at Consumer Services have done so much to extend the market's life and legacy, after guiding it through the traumatic relocation and refounding on Canal Street in 1994. In recent years the market has seen a healthy expansion, largely due to your efforts. Now a new market manager should help the market continue to thrive and bring benefits to the city's people.
Although we were unable to make a proposal ourselves, due to our limitations as a small non-profit organization, our effort to promote the city's call for proposals did raise awareness among prospective market managers. Some have good management experience and may consider submitting proposals in future years. Our group will remain dedicated to preserving the memory of the market, and to expanding awareness of its heritage and history. Coalition members engage in writing and publishing about the historic area, and they are now moving forward with a museum foundation. Yet the new market on Canal Street concerns us as well, as a living link and direct continuation of the Maxwell Street Market.
We feel encouraged about the new market's future. With a manager in place by end of summer, you may find some respite from constant concern with the immediate tasks of running the market. We suggest that now is an opportune time to lay a basis for long-term planning, and to begin to pursue a new city plan for the market. Planning would suggest possible new approaches and strategies for the market. It would help everyone to think years ahead and far beyond the immediate exigencies of day-to-day operations. An official city plan for the market would lend it legitimacy and help to secure its future.
There are some good reasons to pursue strategic thinking about the market. The market today plays a vital role in the city's life, serving as a place of exchange for the city's working people. It offers many goods needed by the people and opportunities for entrepreneurship. The new market is a venue for immigrant merchants to make gains for themselves and their families, just as the old market was. The market flourishes without rest for well over a century now, continuing a city tradition as a great outdoor emporium.
We in the preservation coalition see a value in the market that goes even deeper than economics, although this value arises as a natural extension of the market's role as place of exchange. It is the value of the market as a great gathering place of people. The Maxwell Street Market always gathered the city's people together in unique ways. From its economic base it grew into a center of dialogue and interchange among diverse peoples. New cultural forms emerged in these cross-currents, in apparel and music, creating legacies that are still living today. It is the market's role as gathering place that has given it such historic cultural value to the city's people and the world. What we cherish most is the whole market, in all of its human aspects inspiring new experiences and creative endeavors.
We believe the current market can carry forward the historical legacy. Of course, it is diminished somewhat by the loss of its setting amidst merchants' buildings, customary performance areas, and all other places of importance that grew from the market itself and remained so closely related to its life. The market lost its original home. Nevertheless, today's market retains a vital essence. It remains an important place of exchange, as proven by the great crowds assembling there on Sundays in every season. The market continues to serve a vital economic function and may someday resume its historic role of meeting place for creative purposes.
Now, at this critical juncture in the market's history, we take liberty to offer a few preliminary thoughts for your consideration. They are thoughts to keep in mind for a market plan. First and foremost, we must think of the market as a tool for economic development, as an engine for opportunity and neighborhood-based economic growth. This thought must form the basis of a market plan. It must be first, by its very nature, a place to stimulate economic opportunity. It is a unique place of locally-owned, independent, owner-operated businesses. Its buyers and vendors coming together can keep a city district or neighborhood alive and economically vibrant.
Our next thought expands upon the economic basis of the market. We should begin to see how the market has broader, more public goals. The economic base of the market provides the foundation for building up its vast potential, and in the process of economic exchange the market promotes exciting new forms of human communication and exchange. Therefore we may think of the market as a valuable public space, essentially unrepeatable. Its sensory appeal is unique. It is a lively place or collection of many places, a dynamic place where people mix, where cultural exchange occurs, where children can learn. A market can generate a community spirit and become the heart of a city.
With these initial thoughts in mind, the more formal elements of a market plan may be set into place. We believe that for New Maxwell Street Market the city should begin a plan by undertaking the following important tasks:
These points lay out the initial groundwork that needs to be done for a plan. We encourage the city to take up these tasks within the next year, procuring the services of competent real estate market analysts and specialists in open air markets worldwide. Their products, objective and non-partial, would form a rational base from which the city may move forward, putting into place the parts of a plan.
The real heart of a plan will contain the city's vision for the market, for how we want the market to be. To arrive at the vision, we must involve the people who are there now, getting their thoughts in vendors meetings and customer surveys. Getting the people to talk about the market and what they like about it, and what they hope for it, will produce the basis of a vision. This process may require a community meeting or two. Going further, we must consult with experts, with those who have seen open air markets all over the world, whose experience gives them the perspective to understand the inner workings of markets. They are people who know what makes markets vital universally. Finally, we must consult with those who know history, and especially the history of Maxwell Street. They can advise on the best of the heritage to carry forward into the market's future. These, taken all together, will give sufficient matter to weave a vision for the market's future.
A market plan will set out the great vision. It will be built upon consensus, becoming a widely accepted answer to a very basic question. The question is: how will the market evolve? The plan will lay out a vision and series of goals for arriving there. Subsequent documents will complete the plan. These are all the technical elements of running a market, all of the details to put into place to reach the goals and achieve the vision. These elements will include a management plan and a financial plan. They will also include a business plan, and a plan for market operations. This technical planning should only move forward when the great vision is accepted and embraced by the city's people.
Public markets create dynamic places in cities all over the world. Our city deserves a place among the other great cities. Let us consider how Maxwell Street Market can infuse new life into our city, and create a dynamic public space, one built upon vital economic exchange. Let us plan for a market that can carry into the future its great heritage of the past. The dialogue about the market's future should begin. Our group will continue in the role of observer and advocate for the best interests of the market's future. We believe this vital, living tradition would be terrible to lose.
Thanks again, Caroline, for your concern and dedication to the New Maxwell Street Market.
Sincerely,
Charles Cowdery
President, Maxwell Street Historic Preservation Coalition
Alan Mamoser
Board Member, Maxwell Street Historic Preservation Coalition
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Maxwell Street Historic Preservation Coalition
P.O. Box 6435
Evanston, IL 60204