Transforming the Lot

In 1979, Dan Mendelson was a newly minted Johns Hopkins graduate and employee at Baltimore City’s Department of Housing and Community Development. He walked by the parking lot at the intersection of 33rd and Barclay Streets—labeled Waverly Lot by a ‘crappy sign’—and thought, “This could be a farmers market.”

“I must have known that the city was buying the lot, because that would have been part of my job. When I saw that sign that's really when it clicked. That is a memory I'll never forget. It just felt warm and good. Like, ‘This is going to work.’”

Dan had co-organized a fall festival in the Waverly neighborhoods. Neighbor Joyce Moskovitz wanted to be more involved, too. “I said to her, ‘Oh, the next project we're going to do is a farmers market.’ She’s looking at me like I'm crazy. And I said, ‘Oh yeah, it's going to happen, like the Greenmarkets in New York.” (In 1978, John McPhee wrote ‘Giving Good Weight’ about New York’s Greenmarkets for The New Yorker. Dan had visited some of these markets; Baltimore City only had the one downtown.)

In addition to supporting commercial revitalization by bringing traffic to Greenmount Avenue, Dan and the founders of the 32nd Street Farmers Market wanted “to help small farmers” by offering a strictly “grow-your-own market,” meaning farmers could only sell what they grew. “We followed the lessons of what other people had done,” he said, especially that of Greenmarkets’ associate director, Bob Lewis, who spoke with Dan throughout the new Market’s development.

—Megan Lovely. This essay, based on interviews with three early Market stakeholders, is an excerpt from her forthcoming memoir, Story Seeds: Growing Home at the Farmers Market, to be released Fall 2025

Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.

Jeff Hanes, then president of the Charles Village Association, did the corporate work for the Market’s formation. With the support of a grant from the Goldseker Foundation, they hired a market manager, Joey Harding. They ended up having extra money from the grant, which they used to support other community initiatives, a tradition that Board has continued as funding allows through its small grants program.

Michael Braverman, former JHU roommate with Dan, was another early stakeholder. At the time, he wanted to change the world, trying to modify U.S. policy in Central America, but realized he needed to start local.

After Joey Harding, Michael stepped into the market manager role. Together, Dan and Michael conducted farm visits, a practice continued today by the Market Board and staff. “Let's just say there were massive tomato fights,” Dan said, mirroring a memory that Michael shared.

“I met so many of those farmers on their own terms,” Michael noted. Growing up in the city, his relationship with a pig started at the supermarket. But sitting on a tractor, planting and picking, and eating pork with the farmers that raised the animal, helped him experience the cycle of life on a farm, understand the connection to the earth that farmers have, and the important roles they play in the economy.

Some of the earliest vendors at the 32nd Street Farmers Market are still vendors, including Bartenfelder Farms, Black Rock Orchard, Martin Farms, Reid’s Orchard, and Scott and Cinda Sebastian (sister to Jeff Hanes) of what is now Gardeners Gourmet. Known by all for their small salad greens, they started out selling eggs on a single card table.

“The card table, that brings back memories,” Cinda said. “I mean, now we're like eight tables at these markets!” She was nineteen when the Market opened in 1980, and had recently taken over her father’s chicken farm.

“I remember thinking that it was the coolest thing that I could go to Baltimore City and sell products,” said Cinda. “It was our first big city market, our biggest source of income, and it changed the direction of our farming lives!” Today, many of these farms are managed by the second and third generations, including Cinda’s son Waverly. Clearing up oft-repeated market lore, Cinda said,  “Waverly was not named after the Market. We had a female Waverly way back in the family tree. I was going to name him Waverly regardless of if he was a girl or a boy because I've seen examples of both. It was a happy coincidence though that the Market was [in] Waverly also.”

For thirty years, Saturdays at the Market were a family affair.

“That Market was our life. My entire adult life, and my children's too, has been and still is connected and intertwined with the Market,” she said. “We took the playpen there. My in-laws would come and would either work or babysit. My parents came. We hauled anybody we could, most of the time all in one vehicle. I've had so many people in my front seat buckled together. Everybody wanted to go. It was super exciting,” she said.

In the early years, the Market was only open in the summer–officially, that is. “Winter Market at 32nd Street was pretty wild because there was no winter market. It was just Walter Bedford, Junior Martin, me and a fish guy. We were just right there in the road [with] some sawhorses,” Cinda said. “We would have big 50-gallon barrels with trash in them that we would burn to keep warm on either side of the Market… It was just a matter of, ‘Are you coming next week?’ ‘Yeah.’ ‘Well, the Market's not open.’ ‘We’re coming anyway because we have product.’”

With the support from Vernon ‘Marc’ Rey, one of the Market’s earliest patrons, the 32nd Street Farmers Market eventually expanded to be year-round. Today the Market has approximately 75 vendors, and many families travel from outside Baltimore City to shop there, something Dan said he never would have imagined.

When Dan and other neighborhood leaders founded the Market, it was to unite the friends’ four neighborhoods: Charles Village, Better Waverly, Oakenshaw, and Harwood. Although it’s colloquially called the “Waverly Market,” the founders intentionally named it “32nd Street Farmers Market” so that no one neighborhood could claim it.

“If you look at all the t-shirts and everything, we made a conscious decision not to call it the Waverly Market. But life happens! Things, they evolve on their own, right?”

Although Michael still shops at the Market, it has been years since Cinda and Dan have been back. She now runs a farmstand next to her house. “It reminds me of what it's like being without any tether and without any guidance,” she said.

When asked about the legacy of the Market, Dan reflected, “It's a success in terms of what it was designed for. It brought people together.”

Want to read more? Here is Megan Lovely's WEBSITE —  RECIPES FOR COMMUNITY 

ORIGINAL Market vendors Bartenfelder Farms, Black Rock Orchard, Gardeners Gourmet, Martin Farms, and Reid’s Orchard continue to sell all year around.  —Photograph by Michael Caballes