I haven’t been there for 20 years, and when I lived in the area it was always difficult to find the time to get to Capitol Hill, so I didn’t get there often even then. But I still found myself tearing up to find out, via Jennifer, that DC’s Eastern Market burned down last week.

I don’t have a lot of unambiguously pleasant memories of living in DC, but Eastern Market on an early Saturday afternoon was among them. I’m glad to hear they plan to rebuild.

I hope they don’t cut corners on the renovation. That place had charm.

1. 
   Jennifer Ouellette 2007 05 10 at 9:34:00 pm

   It really is a tragedy; Eastern Market was a pinnacle of local community commerce, in an era of chains and megastores. Alas, while plans are in the works for both renovation and a temporary space, a lot of the local businesses that operated out of the market are going to be struggling for awhile. There was a benefit this past weekend to help them out. So the community is sticking by them… restores one’s faith in humanity, it does. :)

2. 
   Kimberly 2007 05 12 at 12:15:56 am

   One of my favorite outings the spring and summer I lived in DC was a trip to the Eastern Market. How sad that such a wonderful old building burned, and how heartening that there are plans to rebuild.

3. 
   gulo 2007 05 13 at 1:26:56 am

   Damn. Thanks, Chris.

   For me, Eastern Market’s part of the weird dreamscape of close-in SE in DC, the part of Capitol Hill that isn’t quite yet The Hill. I’ve been there a few times in recent years, lobbying like Greg Keeler’s coyote for less of the bad things we can’t seem to stop.

   What makes it so strange is having lived there as a small child, returned very briefly after college on the West Coast—which really didn’t work out; the city was brimfull with Reaganites, and I wasn’t yet resigned to working the system—then skipping nearly another two decades. Only to find myself in meetings at the USPIRG office a block down from my parent’s old house and the elementary school that still, once in a great while, plays a cameo in my dreams.

   One of the great revelations of my first trip back to DC was turning the corner to find myself back at the Eastern Market, and having another of those moments where I could nearly see, smell, taste that place as it was before Nixon fell. City-dirt, rotting vegetables, and the chlorine in my hair from learning to swim at the pool next over.

4. 
   Joshua Gulick 2008 03 22 at 5:13:19 pm

   I’m glad that they will rebuild.  I live close to it, and I guess I took it for granted.  Now I miss it.