On our blog network, Best Places to Shop & Walk, we feature towns and cities that have walkable, interesting downtowns, with a good supply of unique local shops and restaurants. While uploading some new posts the other day, I realized that they all have something else in common: vital and popular farmers markets!
For instance, the Aspen Saturday Market spans two long city blocks, in an "L" formation. Starting at City Hall, on East Hopkins Street and Galena, at this time of year, you'll be met by the hypnotic aroma of the fresh-pepper-roasting contraption at the farm stand. You can buy bags of the stuff, hot off the grate.
Next to that booth is Sinful Sugar, which enjoys droves of locals and tourists lining up to indulge in the most delectable and artistically beautiful pastries, all reassuring themselves and anyone who'll listen that the calories and carbs are offset by the all-natural ingredients used by the talented family baking team.
Behind them, in the tiny park behind Aspen City Hall, is a food court with coffees, teas, wraps, and breakfast treats you can eat right there, sitting at picnic tables.
Continuing along E. Hopkins, you're drawn into the juried arts vendors' booths, where you'll ooh and aah over knitwear, jewelry, natural skin creams, pillows and throws, metal sculpture, pottery, and handbags. More produce, organic meats, flowers, and wine.
At the corner of Hopkins & Hunter, there's a convenient tent set up with chairs to sit and enjoy the live music performers playing under its shade.
On Hunter St., Cathy Crenshaw Jewelers and Rebecca Bourke Designs usually have loyal customers and new visitors poring over their jewelry displays, looking for gotta-have-'em special necklaces, earrings, bracelets, and rings. If you're still hungry after breakfast, or having guests over later, Louis Swiss Bakery's cart is laden with fresh breads, quiches, savory and sweet pastries. There's also a booth with frozen tamales (sooo good) and salsa. And fresh pastas, more flowers, childrens' clothes, leather journals, hats, women's clothing, more produce, all the way down the block.
From its early beginnings as a one-block farmers market years ago to the place to be in Aspen on Saturdays, the Aspen Saturday Market has come a long way.
In Sarasota FL, there are two thriving markets, the Downtowns Sarasota Farmers Market, on Lemon Avenue, from State Street to First Street, every Saturday year-round, 7AM - Noon; and Siesta Key Farmers Market, in the Davidson's Drug parking lot in Siesta Village, every Sunday year-round from 7AM - Noon.
At the Downtown market, there's a mix of produce, flowers, plants, prepared foods, and arts and crafts vendors. As in Aspen, this market has become the place to be on Saturday mornings in Sarasota, with the usual compliment of people and dogs of all sizes and breeds sampling the goods. During Season, of course, the crowds are thicker and more varied in native tongue, as tourists and snowbirds from the U.S., Canada and Europe join the fun.
The Siesta Key Farmers Market is smaller and feels a bit more specialized, with an emphasis on organics and including only foods and flowers, no arts and crafts. It also helps support local chefs by offering a Taste Of The Village with area restaurants serving farm fresh items from their menus. Located right across the street from a few of the most popular local breakfast spots, this market gets both destination shoppers and impulse strollers.
The Westhampton Beach Farmers Market sets up on Mill Road next to the WHB Historical Society behind the Westhampton Fire House. Open on Saturdays, from 9AM - 1PM until the middle of November, the market is mostly a food, produce, and flowers market, with a few craft vendors here and there. The vegetables, fruit and eggs are all organic. You can also find pickles, goat cheese, Mecox cheeses, flowers, honey, Fat Ass Fudge (!) , and other items from the 25 vendors.
In the Library parking lot next to the Municipal Building on Maple Avenue is where you'll find the Hastings on Hudson Farmers Market, on Saturdays from 8:30AM to 2PM, through the third week in November. At this all-food market, over 30 vendors ply their goods in categories such as produce, bread, wines, chutney, desserts, pepper sauces, coffee, lasagna, honey, muesli, pickles, fish, and knife-sharpening! There's also live music, and as the market has grown, it's now spilling onto the lawn in front of the Library.
The NJ Transit train station in Westfield NJ is a central feature of the downtown, and its major parking lot is on the south side of the platform, on South Avenue. That's where you'll find the Westfield Farmers Market on Saturdays from 8:30am - 2:00pm through November 7th. You may be in suburban New Jersey at this market, but that doesn't mean you can't pretend you're on an island vacation when there's a booth like MauiWowi serving coffee and smoothies. There are produce, prepared foods, and baked goods vendors here, as well.
Finally, of course New York City has numerous farmers markets and huge ones, such as the fabled Union Square Farmers Market, which is open on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays, 8AM-6PM, year round. Wow. Check out the Web site of the Council on the Environment of New York City for locations and details about all the farmers markets in Manhattan and the boroughs.
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Sunday, August 9, 2009
Good Old Urbanism - Sarasota, FL
Continuing our exploration of examples of successful "old urbanism," existing communities that already manifest many of the principles of the New Urbanism .
Blessed with a gorgeous location, nestled alongside the mid-Gulf Coast, an hour south of Tampa, protected by even more gorgeous barrier islands--here called "keys"--including Longboat Key, Lido Key, St Armands Key, Bird Key and Siesta Key--Sarasota is also the arts and culture capital of Florida.
In its very walkable and compact downtown, you'll find theatres, a beautiful opera house, a soaring modern library, a purple-painted waterfront concert hall, a municipal auditorium, upscale shops and restaurants, Whole Foods Market, and many art galleries.
A few blocks away, across the only scenic section of Tamiami Trail (Hwy 41), is the magnificent Sarasota Bayfront Park, lined each winter season with modern sculptures, and featuring a lovely tree-shaded walking path and park, impressive yachts, and two restaurants, one upscale and one of the sea-shack variety.
Several blocks south of Main Street, separated by a non-descript, pedestrian-indifferent office-building-zone, there is a charming antiques district, called Burns Square, along Pineapple and Orange Avenues, with restaurants and boutiques, an art movie house, and a neighborhood of artist studios offering monthly Friday night studio/gallery strolls.
Crossing Tamiami Trail and south a few blocks more, is the tiny retail crossroads called Southside Village, surrounded on one side by a lush neighborhood of old residental streets and on the other by the expansive Sarasota Memorial Hospital Center. Southside Village has been undergoing "upscaling" in recent years, and it's a delightful mix of lux gift shops, gourmet markets, restaurants featuring international cuisines, as well as cozy neighborhood bar-restaurants, bakery-cafes, hair salons and boutiques.
A few winding miles down the road is Siesta Drive, which crosses Sarasota Bay and winds through Siesta Key, a tropical paradise enlivened by Ocean Boulevard with its funky shops and restaurants, leading to an exquisite wide beach composed of soft, powdery white sand that is 99% crystal. Perfect for walking, swimming, sunning, parasailing, and sunset-watching and applauding, which is a nightly tradition on Siesta.
Heading northwest from downtown Sarasota, over a couple of short bridges, you enter the world-famous St Armands Circle retail district. It's a "circle" of short blocks that wrap around a park on St Armands Key. There is every kind of store and restaurant, as well as Lido Beach, a long and deep expanse of not-so-soft sand with unbroken vistas across the blue-green waters of the Gulf.
Over another couple of bridges and you're driving alongside the perfect lawns and landscaping of Gulf of Mexico Drive on Longboat Key, a golf-course- and luxury-high-rise-lined gold coast community with its own long strip of wild beach towards the north end. Cross another bridge and you're on lovely Anna Maria, a key of old houses and cute shops just north of Longboat and west of Bradenton.
All these bridges and keys, taken along with downtown proper, make Sarasota a diverting place to live. Within a few miles of any one spot is another with different views and amenities.
The urban design challenge for Sarasota is to connect at least a few of the downtown pedestrian districts with one another, so as to encourage walking and biking among them. Each district is charming, but one has to get into the car, drive, and find another parking space, in order to go from one to the other.
Another problem for retail and dining establishments in the area is the seasonality of their customers. It creates the odd phenomenon of a downtown filled with high rise luxury condominium apartment buildings and plenty of retail, yet lacking significant pedestrian street life. It's a very relaxing downtown compared to most, but not so healthy for the businesses trying to make a living there.
A step in the direction of energizing downtown Sarasota is the high-rise residential/retail complex anchored by Whole Foods Market. It has become a nexus for grocery shoppers as well as people working at their laptops either in the cafe within the store or at the tables outside. It's a lovely spot to grab a bite from the salad, soup, hot food, or deli counter and sit outside socializing with friends or simply watching the passing scene. There's a free parking garage on ground level right in front of the entrance to Whole Foods Market, which makes it easy.
Looking beyond the downtown core, Sarasota is a city of neighborhoods characterized by houses of many design styles and eras, most of which are serviced by convenient local shopping plazas. The commercial spine that links all the Gulf Coast cities in this area is Tamiami Trail (Hwy 41), a six-lane shopping strip with every chain store and restaurant and car dealership one could ever need (or not need!). It's convenient and also frazzling at times. Luckily there are ways to get many of one's errands done while mostly bypassing or simply crossing it at critical spots.
What's amazing about this city is that, from moment to moment, you can choose to be in a sophisticated urban downtown, or walking a soul-expanding white powder beach and staring out into the vast emptiness of the gulf, or sailing your boat on the bay, or enjoying a quiet life in a nice little house with citrus trees in your backyard, or taking advantage of theater and restaurants, all within a few minutes drive of wherever you started.
Residential real estate values, after soaring for a few years during the boom, have been battered by the onslaught of foreclosures sweeping the area, due to the current economic downturn. But as the real estate folks always say, "location, location, location," and the natural beauty and cultural richness of this town are still a big draw, especially to Boomers preparing to retire and longing to escape snow shoveling.
While the days of a $20,000 beach cottage on Siesta Key are long-gone, there are some real bargains to be had right now, if you can find the financing. With careful sleuthing, there are still good values to be found here, especially in older neighborhoods undergoing upgrading.
Part of Sarasota's appeal is that it's more age-diverse than other Florida towns--lots of young and middle-aged families, year round retirees, snowbirds, and singles of all ages. And it has an energy you can tap into if you're looking for things to do. It's also exceedingly laid back, requiring not much of anything if you want to kick back and enjoy gazing at seagulls and pelicans.
One other convenient feature of Sarasota is its airport, code named "SRQ": small, modern, and underutilized. It's only a 15 to 20 minute drive to the airport from downtown. Many travelers choose to fly into Tampa and take the 1 1/4 drive to Sarasota. But it's so easy and low key to arrive right in Sarasota, that it makes living here even more appealing. As soon as you're off the plane, you're "home."
More about Sarasota FL . . .
Amy A. Elder, Sarasota, 2003
Patricia Ringling Buck, et al, A History of Visual Art in Sarasota , 2003
Bonnie Wilpon, Bonnie Wildon, Sarasota-Bradenton, FL , 1999
Editors of Twin Lights, Sarasota, Florida: A Photographic Portrait , 2000
Chelle Koster Walton, Karen T. Bartlett (photographer), The Sarasota, Sanibel Island and Naples Book: A Complete Guide , 2001
John Howey, The Sarasota School of Architecture 1941-1966
Steve Rabow, Steve Rabow's Guide: Sarasota, Bradenton and Venice , 2000
Michael Brown, Streetwise Sarasota
Kevin C. Myers (preface), Buy It, Fix It, Sell It: Profit , 2003 (not specifically about Sarasota, but it's a thought . . .)
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