Downtown Spaces Mean More Than Markets

Of course when I hear Park Blocks I hear Saturday Market but next week the Project for Public Spaces will be back in town to talk about what our whole community sees as a vision for using our open spaces more safely, creatively, and to meet more of the needs of our growing community. As a major stakeholder, we of Saturday Market know that this is not about us, but about the town we live in, so while we have a lot of ideas coming from our place at the center, we're excited about the chance to take that vision to the rest of our community and see how it aligns and can be informed by what everyone wants.

I don't expect this to be a painless process because I know not everyone loves what I love or agrees with what I think to be true. I have been trying hard throughout this process to enlarge my vision and take in the full reality of how all of us use our city and what the future might be, starting with now.

Our market task force met yesterday and came up with some great ideas and I took photos of our work.


We're nowhere near finished but wanted to refine our long wish list to see what surfaced as really important, so we can take that to the discussions knowing it would have wide support. We recognize that limited funds will likely preclude many of the projects we'd like to see, and as renters of the Park, however successful and desired, we do "live" there only as long and as well as we provide added value to the spaces. So here is what we think at the moment:

Rough draft of a visual for it

A new stage to replace the awkward and not-very-functional covered space on the Southeast block would serve all community groups who want to hold events there. To not have to rent, own, or erect a stage structure with lights, tent weights, and a sound system might make it possible for many events to have performances there, large or small. If it could include storage for a number of chairs, tables, and the necessary signs, cones, or other safety items to have these events, this would be grand in so many ways. It would also be cool to have some kind of a kiosk to use as an info booth, with electricity (we now run with batteries in the info booth) and other services. It could be used by other groups as well and maybe have an employee in it during the week to track tourism, give out information to visitors, be the connection for services, and do lots of tasks not currently be covered in the center of our city, except by the EPD and the downtown guides who don't have a place to be consistently found and might benefit from that.

It must be widely known by now that public restrooms are needed downtown. There will increasingly be excellent innovative designs for these and there have to be some that will work. I found a cool photo yesterday:that might show up here, not sure. The slats on the side make bike racks! If it doesn't show you can see more at this link:http://www.designcurial.com/news/public-toilet-architecture---10-of-the-best-4210193/3.

And of course that is not all of our ideas but the ones that floated to the top right away. There seems to be no shortage of ideas but part of the problem is bigger than the infrastructure and this is the challenge that seems to be the hardest for people: we have to work within the current reality. Like my thoughts on the FSP, my thoughts on the people who are currently using our parks for shelter are evolving. I want a lot of tiny houses in our town for people to use for permanent or temporary homes, so that they feel safe, have places to sleep and store their belongings, have privacy, and have support for their basic needs. I want support for Occupy Medical and White Bird for the kinds of health services that traveling or houseless people need. I want it to be normal that you might need and seek help or have problems you can't solve yourself, that are covered by social services. There seem to be plenty of resources to meet these needs and plenty of compassionate people to help set things in place. The Reagan years and other times when people lost that support are over. Let's have support systems that work. Let's enlarge our hearts and compassion to speak frankly and really work together to ease the impacts of people whose needs spill over until they become desperate and hopeless. This does not seem impossible, but it will take a lot of us working together to get there.

I understand why it is hard to talk about these things, but they will be part of the placemaking discussions and it would be great if we could speak without the ironic doublespeak when we say "all citizens of our community" and "the public." This does mean all of us, not just those of us who have found ways to be comfortable in our lives. It includes children and the elderly, and even that guy who likes to use the Park Blocks to smoke cigars that he probably can't smoke at home (though he is kind of out of luck now with the smoking ban.) We all have to keep in mind that we have to speak for all of us. I know our Market and our Task Force are full of compassionate people who think of others (just giving up time to come to a meeting shows that much) so I am looking forward to the opportunities for dialogue and new ideas that will come next week. I hope to see you there!

A Century of Progress

Howard Frank Bowers, Jan. 10th, 1916

This week was so super challenging I felt anxious for the first time in weeks. Generally in the off-season of the Market I feel a sweet and gentle winter retreat, just as if I lived in some snow-covered cabin far away from town. But I live downtown. In a town that is rapidly becoming a city. Have I mentioned that I struggle with development? This week I had five meetings in two days and so many things came at me my head is still spinning.

Tomorrow is the 100th birthday of my house, or at least the signature of two men who signed a board that I found in the wall of my house, and I may say more about that. This little 60x90 property has seen a lot of change in that century, to be sure. In 1916 the houses around me were also new, or new-ish. There's one that was in place since a few decades earlier, and this one is actually much older too, I think. My current theory is that it was hauled here from a nearby farm and fixed up
, but I know that at least two on my corner were built new in that year or right about then. Reconstructing the history is almost as hard as reconstructing the parts as they need it.

I lamented already about the neighbor's fence and it is effectively finished now. I thought to post an "after" shot to balance this before one but really it is too heartbreaking. This photo shows my two houses and the neighbors a few years ago before it changed hands.

My rebuilt house on the right.

My house before I rebuilt it

It looks not at all the same next door today, and now that open space between us and all the many plants are gone. There is a cedar-lined box with a dirt parking space at the back and somehow I will have to adjust. They took out a weedy Bigleaf Maple that was under the utility pole, which pretty much had to happen, though I had pruned it all these years and liked using the branches of it. I saved quite a few of those branches but in the process of scouring the space of any life the overzealous builder-guy actually removed all of the raspberry supports from my five foot strip garden along the side of my shop, as well as the old boards from my OCF booth that I was using to walk on, and a holly log I wanted. Nobody asked me if I wanted help "cleaning" my side yard. I was livid and still am upset, although I recognize that he was probably thinking he was being helpful to the old lady next door (yes, me) and to be fair I was not home that day to ask. I somehow hadn't conveyed the fact that I am not the type of old lady who likes "help" and that I actually wanted those boards right where they were. It is actually a bit miraculous that they didn't level the strip all the way up to the street and take out everything. Maybe I intervened just in time. Once a road, a road forever.

There's another section across in front of that car, now.

But that is probably going to happen anyway. They will next take out the ash that is right next to their house (that crooked one that curves over their roof) and they will take off that bumpout that is the only remaining piece of the century-old exterior and build something there, which will reduce the rest of the easement to a muddy trail they'll use for construction right next to my pear trees. I have to be prepared to just stay serene and adjust to each change even though they seem so invasive to me. Just because I have taken care of their yard for three decades for a succession of renters who didn't, I have no real claim to the space. They are trying to be kind to me as I thrash around with my sense of loss.
You can't really stand in the way of improvements, can you?

So this is on top of the gleeful development plans for the little corner of downtown where I have my other home, the Park Blocks where I spend so much time selling. There will be a building squeezed into that alley just south of the west block, the one I use to enter and exit the Market with my bike cart. I'll need a new route. That I guess I can handle although I hope there will not be any blocked streets or alleys during the construction phase, a vain hope I know. It's going to be inconvenient at minimum and then Kesey Square will also be removed. I know that's a done deal. I know how developers and builders work all too well. They like clean, clear spaces to work with every old thing tossed in the dumpster. The remodel of the house next door was mild compared to what will happen around the Park Blocks. But it is another thing over which I have absolutely no control. At least they listen to my concerns about my garden and my own yard (except for stealing my boards) and respond to some of it. Downtown developers are not going to care what I think.

Me shortly after we bought the place in 1989

Which is not going to stop me from trying to think it. I'm writing a group letter to the city right now trying to articulate Market's concerns for the Park Blocks and Kesey. Mostly we feel that the loss of open space in Kesey will compromise the remaining open space and hurt our use of it. It's hard to separate the projection of our fears from useful ways we can participate and get our needs met. My strategy is pretty much to articulate the fears and then try to link them to city goals and the Master Plan for the Park Blocks, which actually honors Saturday Market quite thoroughly in its visions, and then take most of the fears out of the letter so they can't use that as a way to dismiss our concerns. Our job may just be to get them to tell us before they toss those visions to be replaced by those of the developers, who have a very different idea of what Eugene needs or they wouldn't ask for loans and muptes and waivers and all the things they do to maximize their take and pass their costs on to us, the people.

I feel that people like me are being pushed aside because we don't want to fight against change, that we tend to just feel helpless and resentful in the face of the takers. When they started this fence project next door I clearly told them what the map said about the seven-foot easement but the builder complimented my "pretty hair" while I tried to convince him to scale back his plans. They were hoping to put that fence right on my line, which is, thankfully, right in the center of my pear trees and runs right through my blackcaps and raspberries. I've pulled my plants back really far out of the easement over the last two years, but the fence would have been so oppressive as to kill all of my plants. So I did get a huge concession when they located the fence on their side, in fact, way inside their property line. If they hadn't put in the parking space it wouldn't look as bad. I guess it is the change from jungle to scoured wasteland that upsets me. Fortunately plants will grow and I can make it okay back there in a couple of seasons. Downtown, once the open space goes, it won't be back.

Interior of the old place, pretty untouched since the 1940's. 

 

 

So, whatevs. Fears are generally not realized in quite the negativity that they are generated. Maybe the new building in the downtown alley will greatly improve my access to and from the Market. Speaking up now could help that cause. All things are possible. My house has been here a hundred years, and if Grace Bowers and Tillie Van Harken could see what I have done to it they probably would demonize me too. Those kitchen cabinets were hand-built by somebody and me using the wood to hand-build mine doesn't really bring them back.

I know I gave this house another fifty years at least by all the work I did on it over the last twenty. If I could go back I might make different choices. It doesn't really matter in the big giant picture, does it? Responding to change is something we do every day and cultivating some grace around it is the challenge of all of us, especially old people like me. It isn't going to stop. Fortunately, I have a lot of tools to work through it. One of the best is satire and I got the best little movie in my head last night about the Jell-O Art Show possibilities. Think of The Wiz and sing along as we "Move Kesey down, Kesey down the ro-oad,". Stay tuned.

How to Change: Don't Put up Roadblocks

Institutional memory is a precious resource but it can sure get ponderous. Sitting in the same spot at Eight and Oak for 43 years has created some powerful stories.

And when I say Eighth and Oak, I am guessing you think: Saturday Market. You think that, for one reason, because in the last 40-odd years Saturday Market has spent just about a million dollars advertising that one essential phrase: 8th and Oak. It's our home, and notwithstanding that it is a city/county park used by thousands of other members of the public, it is still unalterably a home to me, and Saturday Market history there is my history. And there are dozens and hundreds of members and former members who feel that way. We go there every week and do what we do. Thousands of times, each one different.

I asked some tourists this week about their experience, since I had overheard them saying: "There it is, just like on the website." They had seen one of my fresh new hats, *Grateful Dad* pictured in the new products which Kim, our Promotions manager, documents so frequently. They said they didn't know their way around Eugene at all, but just went for Eighth. Eighth, Eighth, Eighth.

This Great Street, historically the Main Street which got the pioneers from Skinner's Mudhole to their farms and communities up the river road, was a conduit long before Sixth and Seventh became the feeder streets. Long before Eleventh was paved, long before any thoughts of bus-rapid-transit, back when people walked everywhere unless they had a horse. Farmers and craftspeople gathered there from the beginning to trade and support each other.

It is the artery of our Market, and as it runs between our two Markets, Saturday Market and Lane County Farmers Market, it connects us and feeds us and makes us inseparable.We have more than just synergy. Our institutional memory reaches back to when we were ten and created the LCFM by inviting farmers into our membership. Lotte told us all of the world markets she had observed had produce and other food within them, and we needed it too. Throughout the next thirty years we sold together with farmers in various arrangements, and it was always together that we all did our best.

We can't really cut to now and just start fresh with new solutions to what some LCFM members and some members of the community think are the essential problems with the space. We would not be wise to jettison our collective memory and follow the imaginations of new people who don't seem to see us as we see ourselves. We couldn't do it even if we tried.

The Saturday Market is not just an organization, but it is a membership, and every member is an independent, autonomous business. Each one thinks for herself, gathers facts, forms opinions, and makes her (or his) experience, different every week, responding to the conditions of the moment, but within the conditions of our collective experience that we have learned are what sustains us. This Saturday every time I walked anywhere in the Market I heard people talking about the street closure plan. We like having farmers, but this week we were having a hard time shopping over there.

We like having tourists, parking, garbage collection, hand-washing stations, staff, security, etc. We have chosen to spend a million dollars in advertising and promotion, dollar by dollar. And every single dollar we spend comes from the pockets of our members. All of our money comes from us, through the generosity and interest of our beloved customers, for whom we try our best to create a safe, fun experience.

We create it, with the kind assistance of our neighbors and friends and all of the people who visit our town and want what we want. The love shown for our two organizations is prodigious. People are as dedicated to us as we are to them.

And nobody wants to see us struggle. While members of the community have varied opinions on what will or won't work or should or shouldn't happen, our institutional memory knows that it is possible to break what we have. It is possible to ruin it. As strong and mighty as it looks, you can love it to death.

I'm happy that new farmers are wanting to join what is the premier community gathering in the state, perhaps, maybe in the PNW. Maybe we are the center of the universe as we often say metaphorically. The future of our food is beyond essential, and it seems so vital that young farmers have a way to enter the marketplace, some room, some support. No one is against this. But I am going to draw a very clear line on how growth has to happen at Eighth and Oak.

Eighth has to be open. It is our artery. The closure of Eighth Street for a few farmers' booths is not a step forward to greater prosperity. It will break our Market. No rosy vision of expansion that chokes off our lifeblood will be sustainable or positive for either organization.

It might look good for the farmers. An Eighth Avenue closure plan brings nothing for the Saturday Market members. It will break us.

It may be rude and it is not our style to point this out, but we have a huge imbalance on the Park Blocks, and that is that Saturday Market has grown organizationally to respond to the changed conditions of our marketplace. We have pooled our money through our percentage fee (we pay $10 plus 10% daily for our spaces, plus other fees) and we have rented lots of bathrooms (at an annual cost of $12,000). We have hired security teams for the hours we are there. We have hired people to put up fences, tables, rain protection and shade, to empty our trash cans, to clean up messes, to process people's credit cards and hand out change, to give little kids bandaids and to spread the word of our offerings. We have spent a literal fortune to build our enterprises together and to make them strong, and above all, safe, and we always work until we find something that works for as many of us as possible.

We have subsidized the LCFM with our money, our time, our thoughts, and our hearts for the whole of its existence. We have nurtured it and we continue to pay way more than our fair share for what happens around us on Saturdays. Thousands of my dollars have gone to clean up after the spontaneity of what happens on the Courthouse Plaza. Our staff cleans it every week. We don't rent it, we aren't responsible for it, we don't have any control over it, we just keep it clean. We do that because it is the right thing to do. Thousands of my dollars have gone to sort the trash of farmers' customers, to answer the bazillion questions about the farmers that run through the SM information booth, to do the right thing as well as we know how to do for our beloved neighborhood. We give and we give.

I would not take back a single dollar. I do not like to see the farmers struggle. I would love to see them have the amount of space they need to prosper. However, the space is finite, and we are already using all of it. The uses being made of Eighth Street are the historical, practical, essential uses. It is the only legal and safe bike egress to the west, particularly when Broadway gets blocked off as it was this weekend. It is the way people find the Market, get through it to park, and see what it is. One one side we have the Saturday Market, and on the other side we have the Farmers Market. This is not by accident, and it is not a casual arrangement. Oak Street lacks the intimacy and presence of Eighth. Eighth is not just a through street, it's much more.

We only moved to the Park Blocks in 1982, but we know what it was like when we didn't have the easy entry of Eighth Street. When we were cloistered up on the Butterfly, people were afraid to enter. It took a commitment. Easy entry works for us. Barriers to entry do not.

Closing the Street means narrowing access, and diverting traffic to other locations. Tourists will drive off to Fifth Street, to Down to Earth, to Oakway, and to South Eugene. Locals will find other ways to meet their Saturday needs, deciding not to fight the bolloxed traffic patterns, to take an easier path. It will break us.

And like the other things that we hold in our long memory that have not worked for us, this one will be the worst. This will be looked upon in retrospect just like what happened to downtown through urban renewal, the growth of VRC, and the Downtown Mall. The collective wisdom of the mature institution that is the Saturday Market tells us that this is not the time to accommodate, to experiment, to try out closure and see how it works.

Logistical problems may be solvable, traffic may be controllable, feelings may be consolable. It might look like it works okay for a weekend or part of a season. I'm not sure if you will be able to tell if it is working or not. I'm not sure if the anticipated drop in my  sales and our organization's income, (and the rise in our expenses, which has already taken place as we spend needed resources in meetings and staff time) will be traceable to this alteration in our circulatory system. Nobody really knows.

But we know what feeds us. We know ourselves, and we know the farmers. We know the history of the last ten years of LCFM struggle. We are not new to the situation. We aren't going to put the history aside and doom ourselves to a huge, uninformed mistake by a few people with energy.

Saturday Market is drawing the line. We oppose street closure. LCFM can not own Eighth Street. It is far too valuable.

And through our commitment to doing the right thing, we will continue to work to solve our neighborhood problems. We welcome group process. We have skills to apply to it. We care deeply about our relationships and long, deep cooperative collaborations with the farmers. We think it will break them too, this vision that is not grounded in what is already happening down there.

We are not willing to stand aside and watch this happen. We have offered at least six alternatives to street closure. There are ideas we haven't even yet explored. We have good ideas, a dime a dozen. Just ask.

Don't ask, at your peril. We have six hundred members with opinions. Some of them are grounded in the long history, and it won't be pretty when they surface. Do the work, Eugene City Government, Lane County Government, Lane County Farmers Market, and all who are trying to support small business, economic prosperity, and sustainable business in Oregon. Find the solution that will actually work to improve things.

Don't break us. We are a treasure. Listen to us and respect us. There is no other Saturday Market. Don't love progress more than you love what we have made, what we are making. Do not try to brush us aside.
We are the experts on downtown retail on Saturdays. We sing it every week: Prosperity and fun for everyone.

Can we just get back to that, please? This is the busy season! I have so much to do, to get ready for OCF, for my only son's wedding, my family reunion, my continuing recovery from my broken foot, researching and writing my book, doing the myriad unpaid and paid things I do all the time. The garden needs weeding! I do not have time to go over this repeatedly as we have for the last several years. Do not close the street. Do not close the street. Just don't do it.