Saving Pike Place Market
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he Seattle area is proud of the brands it’s given the world: Amazon and Microsoft, Boeing and Nordstrom, Costco and REI. But when visitors come, they’re drawn most to the much smaller businesses operating beneath the big sign than stands watch over the city’s iconic Pike Place Market.
When people talk about the “heart” of a city, that usually means a main business or municipal hub. In Seattle, this inevitably refers to “the market,” a small patch of land centered by a street only a couple of blocks long. It’s busy and bustling. It’s beat seems to keep time with the one inside your chest. Its lifeblood is its mandate: “meet the producer.” What you find here--the flowers and produce…the fish and meats…the arts and crafts—are all provided by the good people on the other side of the counter or folding table. On some level, shoppers sense they’re transported back to a time when you knew exactly what you were buying, and exactly who you were buying from. “Shop small” and “buy local” may seem like recent trends; the market has been thriving with these approaches for more than a century.
But 50 years ago, this civic marvel almost disappeared. A massive urban renewal project backed by powerful developers, city government and the local newspapers was set to level the market. Resistance seemed futile; a small group led by a single architecture professor and a handful of residents set out to stop it. And, against all odds, they did.
As a result, the Pike Place Market established a roadmap for similar markets around the world. And the victory also provided the first storefront for another small Seattle startup you may have heard of—Starbucks. America’s modern coffee craze was born in the market.
The story is inspiring…and you can see it here in a half hour documentary, Labor of Love: Saving Pike Place Market, produced and written by our Linda Byron.
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