Citiwire.net

For Release Sunday, December 25, 2011
© 2011 Washington Post Writers Group

A heartening sign of Christmas, 2011: holiday festival markets are emerging and flourishing in and near central city squares across America, smartly following the model of the great Christmas markets of Germany and other European lands.

The biggest and possibly most spectacular may be Union Square in New York, where over 100 merchants have been on hand this season offering delights ranging from hand-blown glass housewares to hand-tooled leather belts to “German delights … sweet and savory treats, cider and cappucinno to keep you warm.” A strong runner-up: New York’s Bryant Park, with dozens of stands.

But when I queried David Downey of the International Downtown Assn. about other cities, he e-mailed his member list and in hours was flooding my in-box with examples spread across the continent.

Rochester, Minn., for example, has “Market Strasse — our attempt to be an authentic German winter market.” Downtown Lancaster, Pa., created space for 20 local “creatives” to show their products. Kirkwood, Mo., turned its farmers’ market into a “Christmas Market & Gingerbread Shoppe.” The Roanoke, Va., “Dickens of Christmas” event has featured handmade crafts, soaps, and photography.

In Ohio, the Downtown Akron Partnership’s eight-year old Holiday Market, “begun in honor of German Christkindl Markets,” this year actually had two vendors hailing “from our Sister City of Chemnitz, Germany.” Missoula, Mont. — where I’ve repeatedly admired one of America’s finest all-seasons farmers’ and crafts markets — reported that the “Missoula Made Fair was so busy last Sunday you could barely get through the crowd!”

Parallel stories flooded in from Boston, Chicago, Baltimore and Dallas as well as Green Bay, Wis., Delray Beach, Fla., Albany, N.Y., Grand Rapids, Mich., Fort Collins, Colo., Charleston, S.C., Raleigh, N.C., even from Charlottetown, on Prince Edward Island in Canada.

There’s also some great news in Washington, D.C. (where normal life continues, notwithstanding the constant political calumny). A resplendant Downtown Holiday Market, which sprang up in a parking lot a few seasons ago, has graduated to a prime location directly beside the Smithsonian American Art Museum and National Portrait Gallery.

Nancy Wasserman, handcrafter of glass jewelry, displays her work at the D.C. Holiday Market

And it symbolizes an historic comeback. The market is located on the very stretch of Washington’s Seventh Street Northwest where I recall witnessing the tower of smoke rise from rioting and fires of the April 1968 weekend following the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. Decades of abandonment followed, but now the area — dubbed the new “Penn Quarter” — is alive with new shops, restaurants, a state-of-the-art sports arena and two Metro subway stops.

The D.C. Holiday Market was launched by Washington’s Business Improvement District, founded in 1977. BIDs — there are now about 1,200 across the U.S. — typically assesses all property owners and then provide special security, extra street cleaning, marketing and planning. The idea’s to match what malls offer — and more. Washington’s is one of the most successful, having in 14 years helped spark $14 billion worth of office, retail and residential growth. And with a special focus, as Richard Bradley, the BID’s founder and executive director puts it, on enriching street life, “populating the public space with art, commerce and sociability.”

Streets for people — not just “throughput” of motor vehicles — is the key concept. In earlier years, it took a Washington cafe owner up to two years to get a permit to place seats on the sidewalk outside his premise. “Today we’re up to 1,237 cafes with 3,800 seats– a true indicator of livability,” Bradley claims.

Wintertime livability is another challenge. America’s holiday markets may never equal Europe’s winter markets — cities like Vienna, Salzburg, Munich, Stuttgart and Strasbourg, where people flock by the tens of thousands, from late morning into the icy evenings, enjoying city blocks set aside for artisans’ stands, puppet shows, candies and gingerbread houses, miniature steam train rides, hot spiced gluhwein and much more.

But we’re learning. I checked with Michael Berman, whose D.C.-based Diverse Markets Management firm works extensively managing outdoor public exhibitor markets including the Downtown Holiday Market for Washington’s BID. Berman circulates word of the opportunity to display to over 1,000 exhibitors — independent painters, sculptors, fiber art, leather, glass, ceramic, jewelry, printmaking and speciality food specialists. Exhibitors of foreign crafts are also invited.

Then Berman assembles juries — art professionals “with a keen eye” — to decide which exhibitors have the class and originality to be invited. Each day there’s a slightly different mix, selected for optimum balance. And a big part of the enjoyment, walking from stall to stall, is to meet, talk with the designer/exhibitors. Suddenly one’s in dialogue with real humans about their creative work, and can buy from them directly — a rare luxury in the age of mass merchandizing.

Thinking jealously of Europe, Berman adds “Just one thing’s missing for us in winter — alcohol.” Licensing for outdoor shows is a challenge, he notes — but adds: “Just wait — Some year we will have a grog tent.”

Neal Peirce’s e-mail is npeirce@citistates.com.

For reprints of Neal Peirce’s column, please contact Washington Post Permissions, c/o PARS International Corp., WPPermissions@parsintl.com, fax 212-221-9195. For newspaper syndication sales, Washington Post Writers Group, 202-334-5375, wpwgsales@washpost.com.