ONE | 2017
This is an issue of traditions and beginnings. Our new mayor has a vision for emerging business. A classic hotel serves a killer afternoon tea. There’s an opera director on the move. Third-wave coffee. High-fashion eyeglasses. Urban farming. Advice from a yogi. This is vintage Market at the start of 2017. It’s almost planting season, and it looks like it’s going to be a good year.
LIVE MEET SHOP TASTE EXPERIENCE
FLYOGI
#LIVE “Yoga is a process. It’s a journey. And no matter where you are, you fit in it.” - Jason Aviles, Owner/Instructor
A TOMATO GROWS ON MARKET Nature abhors a vacuum. Humans love fresh tomatoes. In light of these basic truths, a garden on Market should never have been considered unlikely. It was perhaps inevitable. The idea first germinated in the middle of winter. A residents’ association meeting provided fertile ground, upon which Mark Fields (resident of 2nd & LOMA) and Pat Shay (resident of the Residences at Rodney Square) tended to its early needs. They found open land between Sports Connection and the new Twisted Soul restaurant on the 400 block of Market. Sports Connection owner Julia Han donated the space. They found funding from the Delaware Department of Agriculture and The Buccini/Pollin Group. Pat agreed to shepherd the project forward. But they needed hands to tend the garden.
URBAN FARM Pat: “We put the call out to all the residents. Within a half hour, I started getting emails. We ended up with 12 beds to begin with and 12 different gardeners.”
Those first 12 pioneers included 11 residents from buildings up and down Market Street and one local chef, Bryan Sikora of La Fia. Together, they planted the Market Street Community Garden on the first days of June. “We planted everything -- zucchini and eggplant and tomatoes and cucumbers and herbs and cantaloupe and watermelon and everything. One of our gardeners actually has stalks of corn planted.” City farming has its advantages.
WILMINGTON GRAND PRIX
#NEWMARKETWILM “Racers love the technical nature of the course and the enthusiastic crowds that greet them. We’re thrilled to feature the Wilmington Grand Prix on our National Calendar.” - Micah Rice, USA Cycling’s VP of National Events
HISTORY THE BEST DELAWARE MUSEUM The fully renovated, brand-spanking-new Delaware History Museum finally gives the Delaware Historical Society a worthy space to display many of the small wonders it has been collecting since 1864. We asked Jennifer Potts, DHS curator of objects, to tell us more about one piece that fascinated us on our visit: The Civil War-era lottery wheel: “That was a wheel that was used in all three counties toward the end of the war, when they thought they might need still more troops. After volunteer recruitment had failed to provide the sufficient numbers, they decided to run a draft. The last draft in Wilmington was held at Old Town Hall on Feb. 20, 1865. We have the tickets that originally went along with it as well, from the Sussex County lottery draw. They have the names of lots of different people from Sussex County, everybody from slaves to farmers – 99 people who weren’t actually selected who were still in the wheel.”
#EXPERIENCE
Merchants Bar COFFEE MODE
COFFEE “We refer to the smell of the coffee as an aroma. Fragrance is really the proper term. Fragrance refers to the dry smell of coffee. Aroma is the smell of coffee when it’s brewed.”
- Barista and Manager, Joey Lopes, COFFEE MODE
TEA The Green Room at the Hotel du Pont presents an elaborate Victorian tea service at 3pm and 3:30pm just about every day that’s not a major holiday. At $40, the Victorian Tea at the hotel is an affordable luxury and a walk back in time to a world where specialty tea blends are accompanied by plates of tea sandwiches, scones (including a chocolate brownie scone) and then an array of desserts, all made under the direction of the inestimable Executive Pastry Chef Michele Mitchell.
#TASTE
SPACEBOY
“When we first got into business here on Market Street, nobody understood what we were doing. They'd would just come in and say ‘What are you selling? Old clothes?’ And I would say ‘Yeah, if they're vintage.” - Noah Gabriel, Co-owner at Spaceboy
#SHOP
DITA
DITA EYEGLASSES ON MARKET Available at Wilmington Optical, 719 N. Market St. DITA eyeglasses frame many famous faces, and when Greg Esbensen’s clients at Wilmington Optical started asking for them by name … well, he hasn’t lasted 37 years on Market by ignoring what his customers want: Consumer demand: “It’s a fashionconscious business, the eyeglass business. Everybody was asking for DITA. One of the vice presidents of the company was on the east coast, and he stopped in here for three or four hours, we sat and talked. Now there’s only two of us in the state who carry them. The other is an eyeglass store in Dover.” DITA quality: “It’s the finest stuff I’ve seen in the 43 years I’ve been in business. You can tell by holding it – the hinges, the workmanship, the frames, just the quality of the plastics, all 18-karat gold-filled metals. I call them masterpieces.”
“I had no designs on becoming an actual singer until I saw my first opera.” - Brendan Cooke, General Director of OperaDelaware
TERRANCE VANN
#MEET “I was seeing all different
types of people...And I was like, wow, this is bigger show. It’s about the people connecting.”
- Terrance Vann, Wilmington Artist
BRENDAN COOKE
than just me having the art
THE NEW MAYOR ON MARKET:
“I think the new businesses on Market are going to be businesses that people my age hardly understand. And that really does not require a New York location anymore. You need a business friendly place, a place that has a little bit of a cultural dimension to it, that’s appealing in the way a 30 year-old would find appealing, not in the way I’d find appealing. And I’m fine with that. I know that. And I’m looking to young people, I’m looking to all the young entrepreneurs in the city who are forward thinking, who for our good fortune want to stay here in our city, to make the city better. That’s everywhere from a hairstylist to Carvertise and everything in between. It’s The Mill. It’s 1313. It’s those places where we can create an environment that really feels great.”
MAYOR MIKE PURZYCKI
LIVE MEET SHOP TASTE EXPERIENCE
GALLERY Follow, Tag, Like, Share #NewMarketWilm | www.NewMarketWilm.com
UP FOR A NewMarketWilm EXPERIENCE?
JOIN US on .com “Let’s Meet on Market”
Read more every Wednesday.
Visit www.NewMarketWilm.com (c) 2017 Wilmington Renaissance Corporation