illustration by Rich Hauck.
“This market is rocking!”
A few weeks back, on a Saturday afternoon, an enthusiastic Ryan Hummer gave me his assessment of the action at the Broad Street Market.
The thing is—I hadn’t asked him.
My wife and I were at his stand, Hummer’s Meats, collecting our usual provisions for the coming week, when he spontaneously shared his excitement over the crowds of people elbowing their way through the narrow aisles of the brick building.
“Quite a change,” I said.
“Day and night,” he responded.
Hummer’s Meats is a market stalwart, and the family traces its roots there back to the 1920s. Ryan is the fifth generation to cut meat and, for a while, it looked like he might be the last of his family to sell anything inside Harrisburg’s only city market.
“I’m just about out of here,” he told me four years ago, after an infestation of bugs and rodents forced the market to shut down, the second time it had closed in two years for basically the same reason.
Back then vendors were at wit’s end—angry with management, with the board, even fighting with each other. The market still had its regulars, but, on many market days, more people seemed to be working there than shopping there.
The 150-year-old market was in the same funk as the rest of Harrisburg—a once great place now dirty, depopulated and struggling.
Then something happened—or, more accurately, a series of somethings.
Ask vendors what that was, and you’re likely to hear a trio of reasons: better management, a better mix of vendors and a better neighborhood.
Two years ago, Ashlee Dugan was appointed market manager followed, last year, by Beth Taylor. The vendors I spoke with described both women as caring, committed and competent, with a hands-on, problem-solving style of management. They also praised them for helping to bring stability to a market long plagued by turmoil.
Importantly, Dugan and Taylor put recruitment of new, high-quality vendors near the top of their priority lists, and that effort has born fruit.
On a typical Friday or Saturday, large crowds huddle around three newcomers that have their stands in a row in the brick building: Radish & Rye Food Hub, Evanilla doughnuts and Elementary Coffee Co. But it’s not just the newbies. Long lines often greet the hungry at long-timers like Fisher’s Deli, Lil’s Pretzels and Peach Ridge Produce. The newer vendors, though, clearly have injected life and brought fresh faces into the market.
Lastly, the neighborhood in general—and the Millworks in particular—deserve some credit, vendors told me.
For years, Midtown Scholar Bookstore was about the only complementary business to the market. But, over the past year, Zeroday Brewing, H*MAC (especially the Kitchen and the monthly HBG Flea), the Susquehanna Art Museum and the Millworks have recruited people into Harrisburg. Several vendors singled out the Millworks not so much for generating pedestrian traffic across Verbeke Street (though there is some of that), but for introducing—or reintroducing—folks to Midtown, some who return to shop at the market.
Interestingly, not one vendor I spoke with cited the once-ballyhooed Broad Street Market Task Force as a player in the improvement. More than two years ago, the city formed the task force to make recommendations on how to improve the market and, last year, the group issued its report.
Perhaps most significantly, the task force suggested changing the market’s complex management structure, currently a multi-tiered mess consisting of the city, the Broad Street Market Corp. and Historic Harrisburg Association. Instead, the report said, the market should become a nonprofit entity, which would better enable it to raise money and operate smoothly.
That hasn’t happened yet, nor have the report’s other suggestions been implemented (with the possible exception of slightly expanded market hours). Still, progress—substantial progress—has been made, judging by the large crowds and seemingly satisfied vendors. So then what’s the lesson?
Well, leadership matters a lot and, by leadership, I mean committed, every day, on-the-ground (not board-level) leadership. Secondly, synergy matters a lot. It was tough to get outsiders to venture into a desolate Midtown but got easier once several new businesses created a buzz and more options in the neighborhood, allowing people to walk from one place to another.
What doesn’t matter so much? Bureaucracy, reports, endless meetings. Perhaps, one day, the market will shed its layers of overseers. But, until then, it clearly can make headway regardless. As for the task force’s other recommendations—heck, we already knew the market needed infrastructure improvements, better hours and a focus on good food.
The Broad Street Market, like Midtown itself, has been struggling for decades, and numerous administrations and consultants have devised plans to fix it. Nothing seemed to work. All the reorganizations and master plans could not solve its two greatest problems: a dearth of high-quality, focused leadership and, most importantly, a lack of customers.
After years of almost nonstop woe, people have been returning to the market. It seems so sudden and unexpected, but perhaps it shouldn’t be any surprise that, as Midtown goes, so goes the Broad Street Market.
Lawrance Binda is editor-in-chief of TheBurg.
