If you had to describe this market in one word, it would be "woolly." This outdoor operation is open year-round, selling produce and canned goods even in snowstorms. On winter mornings you quickly appreciate the warmth of a wool cap and an Arctic parka, says Marc Rey, the market manager, who has seen many a frigid dawn.
But in the warmer months, it is the customers who look woolly. Beards and curly manes abound. Hopkins' Homewood campus is a few blocks away, and as you meander through the market you might overhear discussions of dissertations and other high-minded pursuits. There is a bit of Berkeley, Calif., here.
"These people buy a lot of apples," said Dave Reid, one of the about 40 vendors who sell at the market. Reid had a twofold explanation for why apples sell well in the Saturday-morning market. The patrons of the Waverly market know a lot about nutrition, he said, and they like the price. "Apples are cheap," he said.
One market regular is Alan Barysh, a poet who does performances to benefit homeless shelters and who exchanges copies of a newspaper called Revolution to passers-by for donations. If you aren't in the market for a communist newspaper, the entrepreneurial Barysh has CDs of his poetry.
One Saturday out on 32nd Street , amid vendors selling spring rolls, ginger and soap, a street musician set up his operation. At other locales, street musicians play guitars. At woolly Waverly, the street musician plays a cello.
Downtown Farmers' Market
Where: : Saratoga Street between Holliday and Gay streets under the JFX
When: : 8 a.m.-noon Sundays
This is the mother of all Maryland farmers' markets. It is the largest and, at 32, the oldest in the state. It is also the most crowded.
At 11 on Sunday morning, the aisles look like the Jones Falls Expressway at rush hour, as throngs inch their way forward. At the north end of the market, the line for Zeke's Coffee snakes for about 50 yards. Sometimes a velvet rope is installed on the asphalt to keep the queue under control. Near the south end of the market, an equally long line forms of folks buying beans from McCarthy's, a Caroline County farmer.
The family farm tradition is well-represented here. Stands run by the Albright, Bartenfelder, Lewis, Knopp and Pahl clans occupy the same space year after year. There are also a plethora of cooked foods. You can get a mushroom sandwich, an omelette, a pickle, an organic biscuit for your dog or freshly squeezed orange juice and political analysis delivered by former mayoral candidate Keiffer Mitchell Jr.
