Sometime last week, I got an email from a guy named Al who had stories to tell about Reading Terminal Market. Since this is something of an obsession for me, we made plans to meet up, so that he could share his stories.

I met him around 11 am this morning, in the small public square that is kitty-corner from the Market.  He is something of a professional Philadelphia booster (he works for the city Visitors’ Center, one thing among the many he does with his time) and so presented me with a pocket-sized map of the city, in case I ever needed a visual aid in order to help lost tourists.

Al grew up in Chinatown, just a few blocks from Reading Terminal, and so the Market played a large role in his childhood.  Walking into the building, we headed to the back, towards the area where the Amish merchants have their stalls (they are there Wednesday through Saturday).  He pointed to the long strip of counter that belongs to Beiler’s Bakery and told me that just about every Saturday while he was growing up, they’d come over here in the late afternoon.  They’d stand around and wait, until the magic moment when the Amish women who sold the breads, cakes and pies would announce that everything on the counter could be had for a single dollar.  His mom would then spring into action (with all the others who had been waiting for the bargain), buying up loaves of blueberry bread.

As he described the scene to me, I could almost see the people jostling each other, trying to pick out the best of the end-of-day baked goods and still get what their families needed for the week.

Anthony was leaning against the counter, his chin resting on his curled up fists, when I walked by. It was a quiet afternoon at the Market, so there weren’t many people asking about the steaks and chops in the case below him. I watched from a distance for a moment and then doubled back.

He grew up in South Philly and learned to cut meat when he got a job at the butcher shop around the corner from his house. He worked there for 12 years before they closed down. He looked for work for a while and three years ago a friend introduced to Harry (of Harry Ochs). He’s been at the Market ever since.

When I asked him why he does what he does, he looked at me as if he’d never once questioned the path his life has taken and simply said, “I just like cutting meat.”

His favorite cut of beef is the Delmonico. I asked him if he cooks and he responded with a shrug, “I have to, I’m single. No one else is going to do it for me.”

A customer stopped by the stand and he walked over to wait on her. She asked several questions about the different cuts of pork that were on the display, and he patiently answered her. She walked away without buying anything and he strolled back over to me. He told me that most of the customers he interacts with are terrific. A lot of them have been shopping at Harry Ochs for years longer than he’s worked there. I prodded a little, trying to dig some juicy tidbit about crazy clientele out of him. He thought a minute and mentioned that someone came in once and asked for whale meat. He shook his head at the memory, as if he still couldn’t believe the guy.

We chatted for a couple more minutes, about the places in the Market where he likes to get lunch (Spatero’s for hoagies, DiNic’s for roast pork), until suddenly business started to pick up. I thanked him for his time and walked on. A little while later, I passed by there again and he was back in the position where I had first seen him, leaning, chin perched on fists, staring out into the Market.

I met Anna as she dug through a mound of packed pea pods. She had a slightly prickly look about her, as if she might not be interested in talking, but as soon as she understood that I wasn’t trying to take advantage of her, she relaxed and started to tell me stories about her life and her attachment to the Market.

Since moving to Philadelphia from the Ukraine in 1950 at the age of 24, she has shopped at the Market regularly. Now that she’s retired, Anna stops in almost every day to hunt for bargains on fresh vegetables. She told me that Iovine’s and OK Lee often compete with each other, so if one lowers a price a bit, the other will respond by making their prices five or ten cents lower on the same item. That’s when she swoops in and snatches up the bargain.

“I save ten cents here and ten cents there, and it makes a difference. The prices of everything else keep going up, up. I have to save someplace.”

When I asked her what she liked to cook, she patted my arm and leaned in, as if to protect a big secret from the prying ears around us. “I’m not a fancy cooker. I eat meat very rarely. Vegetables, lots of vegetables. That’s the secret to staying healthy!”

She jabbed the arm with her finger then, to emphasis her point. She cooks her vegetables quickly, in a little olive oil with lots of garlic and onions, but always making sure that they aren’t too crunchy, as her digestion can’t handle that anymore. She admonished me not to cook vegetables in water, because all the vitamins rinse away when you drain them.

After instructing me on her method of cooking, she adjusted the fishing hat she was wearing over her short, gray hair and said, “You’re young.  Follow my advice.  Eat vegetables and stay away from fried foods.”  I assured her that I ate quite a lot of veggies and that I would continue to do so (I made no promises about the fried foods though).

Anna was fascinating to talk to, because she had definite opinions and didn’t hesitate sharing them. When she was 15 years old, World War II had broken out and she was enlisted into the forced labor movement in the Ukraine.  She told me about coming to America when she was 24 with her four-year-old son.  She said that she always called it her “milk and honey country” and that she still thinks that it is the best country in the whole world.  She is firmly opposed to the war in Iraq, which she feels is very different from World War II.  She hates how people with children and families are dying for nothing.

After 15 minutes of non-stop talking, blocking the display of pea pods at OK Lee’s, she took a deep breath in and said, “I’ve bored you enough.  I should finish my shopping and go home.”  I thanked her for her time, we shook hands and she went on her way.  Hopefully I’ll run into her again soon, as I think she has many more interesting stories to tell.

Monday afternoon I didn’t get over to the Market until nearly 4 o’clock. It’s amazing how the energy of the space changes once the lunch rush is over on the weekdays. It becomes a place where people can sit quietly over a cup of coffee (try it iced from Old City Coffee, I had it today and was instantly smitten) or a newspaper or a laptop.

After a quick circuit of the market, I centered in on three kids sitting around a table in the Center Court. One had a notebook spread out in front of her, the other two (who you can see above) were just hanging out and talking. I interrupted them with my standard, “Hi, can I bug you for just a second speech?” while I pulled up a chair (I find people have a harder time saying no if I’m already sitting down). They were up for talking, so I stayed in the seat and started asking questions.

They introduced themselves as Jay (on the left), John (on the right) and Cindy (who didn’t want her picture taken). Marketing majors at Temple, all three are going to be heading into their senior years this fall. Cindy is the reason they hang out in the Market, she works at one of the prepared food stands and occasionally is able to pass a little free food along to her friends.

She’s been working at the Market for more than a year and a half and said she enjoys the people she meets. She once met a professional marathon runner who had come to the Market to load up on pasta before a race and swears that there is a judge who frequently comes in for lunch and makes a point of carrying a juror sticker around with him so that he can get the 10% discount.

John remembered walking into the men’s room one afternoon to discover a man shaving his beard at the sink with a pocket knife. Realizing that it wasn’t getting the job done, John told him to wait and ran out to get him a disposable razor so that he could finish the shave more effectively and less painfully.

At this point, the conversation devolved a bit. We talked about the difference between the words effect/affect and invincible/invisible and then Jay started asking me questions about the story project and what I was doing in school. He liked the idea of talking to people with a specific location as the point of initial conversation and thought that it would be cool to do something similar with the different neighborhoods in the city. Maybe when this project is done…

Cindy, John and Jay, I hope I see you all around the Market again sometime soon! (I promise to try the chocolate covered potato chips soon).

I was sitting at the counter of Hershels East Side Deli Saturday afternoon, chatting with owner Steve Safron about food, basketball and graduate education at St. Joe’s, when Betty Buffett dropped onto the stool one over from me. She looked up at Steve and asked, “Do you have a small diet coke? Just a small one.”

He looked at her, smiled and nodded.  By this point, Betty’s son Neil was sitting next to her, and he held up two fingers, to indicate that he also wanted a soda.  Steve came back with their drinks, and we continued chatting, until Betty requested a slice of lemon for her soda.  Just as he returned with it, he was called away again, this time by one of his employees.

Betty turned her gaze on me, took in the fact that I was taking notes, and asked me what I was doing.  I explained the project and I didn’t even have to ask her what she thought before she started to tell me how much she loved the market.  She said that it reminded her of the Bird-in-Hand market in Lancaster County, a place she’s always enjoyed visiting because of the Amish vendors.

Betty lives in Lake Placid, NY and Neil is a PhD student at SUNY Stony Brook.  That morning had been the first time in 20 years that she had been to the market.  She was astounded by how much it had changed.  For breakfast, they waited in line for counter seats at the Dutch Eating Place.  Betty tried the scrapple and liked it fairly well, although she did admit that she ate it with a healthy serving of ketchup.  Neil shook his head at the memory and confessed that he had stuck with the turkey bacon.

Neil said that since he goes to school on Long Island there really isn’t anything like Reading Terminal around him.  He can go into the city for a similar experience, but he believes that places like the market are strictly “an urban phenomenon.”

By this point they had finished their drinks and needed to get going.  Earlier in the day they had gone to the Franklin Institute to see the King Tut exhibit and were now on their way to the Archeology Museum at Penn in order to check out the companion exhibit there.  I gave them easy directions on how to get to Penn and we said goodbye.

It was a pleasure to talk to two people who were so enthusiastic about their visit to Philadelphia, and the market specifically.