Talk:Pike Place Market

History section

I'm just leaving dirty chronological notes for the key events cribbed from a variety of timelines, online and print. I hope it gives an idea of the scale I was thinking in the end, once the sections are filled in. rootology (C)(T) 21:05, 2 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Good move. - Jmabel | Talk 22:40, 2 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Location and extent section

I've taken what I think is a good shot at sorting out a section that was (under the name "location") a mess. I believe it should now be clear that there are several conflicting definitions of what constitutes the Market. There is, I hope, no question that everything inside the narrow, federally recognized historic district should be covered in this article. I think we should at least cover the more expansive city-recognized historic district (which lets us include Steinbrueck Park and the Hillclimb). I'd also want to include the obviously Market-related South Arcade.

However, I think that covering the rest of the Pike-Market neighborhood is pushing it. Really, the block between First and Second has less to do with the Market than does the block between First and Western north of Virginia (and arguably even the next block up from that) and the latter fall outside of even the City Clerk's generous boundaries while the former are within those boundaries. And the inclusion of the Moore Theatre here strikes me as quite inappropriate. Again, it is outside even the City Clerk's generous boundaries, and its only relation to the Market is that it is another well-restored nearby early 20th-century building.

Rootology, your thoughts? - Jmabel | Talk 22:40, 2 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Not having heard back, I'm taking the liberty of getting the Moore Theatre material mostly out of the article. I've merged it all to the article on the theater itself, where it really belongs. - Jmabel | Talk 00:58, 4 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, I was totally swamped the past day with tons of stuff. It was a good move. Anything you want to pull, go nuts.

The Market area as well, I agree. If stuff is borderline, it can't hurt to put it in, even it's just a placeholder note. Maybe skip a sentence, add an ugly line break with a {Foo here} note, and based on how it ends up in scale and value after we can drop it or build that bit up. I'm going to wrap up a couple new comments on the Greencards FA and then dive into the history section. rootology (C)(T) 02:35, 4 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Notable buildings

I've worked a little on it. Most of the dates given are very sloppy: for buildings outside the Market proper, someone just copied the era designations from the NRHP listings, which are only accurate to the quarter-century at best. If we are going to give dates of construction, we should get them right. - Jmabel | Talk 07:28, 3 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I've DONE the thing about fixing dates & citing for them. The section could still be expanded. - Jmabel | Talk 00:32, 4 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- I think it's pretty solid now. - Jmabel | Talk 07:54, 12 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Style issue

When we use the single word "Market" to refer to the institution as a whole, should we capitalize or not? - Jmabel | Talk 15:01, 3 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This I'm not sure about totally, but I'm inclined to say yes when referring to the Market itself specifically. Talking other markets or markets in general, just market. rootology (C)(T) 02:36, 4 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Notable people

Notable people: I'm sure there are many who should be mentioned and are not, but one blatant omission is Joe Desimone (and the Desimone family in general). - Jmabel | Talk 01:30, 4 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm going to get Joe in there. :) rootology (C)(T) 02:36, 4 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

And let's get Sol Amon into just one place: not an "attraction" and a "notable person". - Jmabel | Talk 01:34, 4 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Incorrect claim in caption

"At the shore is Railroad Avenue on pilings, now Western Avenue. Alaskan Way apparently does not yet exist, so this is before the completion of filling in 1905." Simply wrong. It is Western Avenue on pilings, and it was already called that. Railroad Avenue was the future Alaskan Way. It may not yet have been built here; it's hard to tell because it would be at approximately the same height as the photographer. I can show you Sanborn maps from almost exactly this time (1904-1905) that make that very clear. I'll prepare JPEGs of them and upload them some time in the next 48 hours, but if you have access to the Sanborn Digital Maps you can see for yourself. - Jmabel | Talk 17:42, 4 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm. Now that I look closer, I'm actually less sure of what I said. Here are all the relevant 1905 maps. I can't work out exactly where that photo is. I'll try to find earlier maps and see if they are more revealing. Anyway, the image at lower right belongs in the article, because it shows the terrain of what is now the heart of the Market just before the Market was built.

Note that the maps don't line up cleanly: the maps at right would have to be shifted down to line up. Click through if you want to see any details. These are high-res and should be readable. - Jmabel | Talk 18:30, 4 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I've added an 1893 map here. - Jmabel | Talk 20:39, 4 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

1905		1893

The short of it: I can't place exactly where the photo is (and it would be great if someone could), but there is no question that West Street became Western Avenue, Water Street became Elliott Avenue, and that would make Railroad Avenue today's Alaskan Way, not today's Western Avenue. If we can get a map that shows exactly where the old Washington Hotel stood, we should be able to sort this out. - Jmabel | Talk 20:57, 4 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I suspect it was pretty much exactly where the New Washington Hotel (now Josephinium) stood: 2nd and Stewart. So the remark about "near Pike Street" in the caption would also be wrong. - Jmabel | Talk 21:02, 4 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed. It was on Stewart. The hotel and its grounds occupied the entire two blocks from Second to Fourth between Stewart & Virginia. Of course, at the time that was very steep, and the hotel had a private cable car to get people up from downtown. ~~I'll try to upload a map some time in the next 48 hours as documentation of this.~~ - Jmabel | Talk 02:39, 7 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

1905 Sanborn map covering the area from Stewart to Lenora Streets between 2nd to 4th Avenues.
Detail: just the hotel and its cable car.

Rachel

Rachel is worth a section unto herself. There are now several other pig statues around the market (I like to point out the hidden in plain sight one that is above the marquee roof of the Sanitary Market) and the charity fundraising Pigs on Parade which scatters artist designed pigs around the city and then auctions them.

(I'll go over some more things which are worth changes or additions, but I'm not sure how much help I can be in actual writing for you.) SchmuckyTheCat (talk)

Any and all help is welcome, and yeah--Rachel is getting her own section, and then a spin-off article for her and Pigs on Parade. There's more than enough for that available. rootology (C)(T) 16:24, 4 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There's a seated statue of Rachel in the Market Heritage Center. - Jmabel | Talk 17:13, 4 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Is there? I'll have to see if I can find it next week and get a photo. rootology (C)(T) 23:46, 4 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I specifically didn't because I presumed there would be copyright issues. - Jmabel | Talk 06:04, 5 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Footnotes

An edit summary asks "are they going to ding us for mixing Harvard and footnote citations"? We'll eventually have to clean up footnotes, but while I'm working on substance I don't like to worry too much about this.

A non-Harvard footnote should be OK if something is cited only once, but frankly in my experience people become pedantic sticklers when reviewing for FAs. We can deal with this sort of issues later: right now, I think the most important thing is to write a solid, substantive article (or articles: I won't be surprised if we spin out a few along the way). - Jmabel | Talk 17:18, 4 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thats what I was figuring too, it was just curiosity at this point. rootology (C)(T) 17:42, 4 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

History section scope FOR the FAC

I've been thinking about this. The article, when I finish out the "full" history section as I've laid it out, is going to be honking humongous. Too big, I think, for the article... it will be like 66%-75% of the content based on how big the other sections are now. I'm going to be short on time for a couple days after tonight (Monday, Tuesday sometimes, most Wednesdays stink for me). Would you mind tagging somehow what you think are the key points in "market history" from what I have currently, maybe with a small graphic (?) or text, and I'll go through and add some maybe--and that'll be what I focus on first and foremost. All the overflow I was thinking of could go to History of the Pike Place Market after for a standalone article. rootology (C)(T) 05:13, 6 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think we should try to write the whole history & then refactor. & don't be so sure it will be 66%-75% of the content: I'm working mainly on other sections. - Jmabel | Talk 22:35, 6 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Possibly interesting source

An academic source on tourism & the market: Giorgia Aiello and Irina Gendelman, Seattle’s Pike Place Market (De)constructed: An Analysis of Tourist Narratives about a Public Space, Journal of Tourism and Cultural Change, Vol. 5, No. 3, 2007, p. 158 et. seq. - Jmabel | Talk 22:35, 6 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sentence needs clarification

"They would sell to the middleman on commission, as most farmers would often have no time to sell direct to the public, and their earnings would be on marked up prices and expected sales."

"as most farmers would often have no time to sell direct to the public": do we really want to say that? As the opening of the Market made clear, it wasn't a matter of time, it was a matter of having a convenient place to sell.
"They would sell to the middleman on commission": who was on commission? The farmer? The middleman? Does this really mean to say "on commission" or does it mean "on consignment"? How exactly did the system work?
"their earnings would be on marked up prices and expected sales." Whose earnings? The farmer? The middleman? What does this mean in any case?

I just find the whole sentence so confusing that I don't even venture to offer a rewrite. Could you possibly give a more verbose paraphrase and then let's work on tightening that once it is at least clear. - Jmabel | Talk 04:29, 7 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I tried to clean it up a bit more. I'm going to come back to this bit, and the system, since the specifics are only about as finely detailed as I have it now in this book, but I've seen more detailed info in other sources before that we can work in. The old system really was, well, unfair. rootology (C)(T) 04:08, 8 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Still a bit vague, but less so than before. "On consignment" is clear. "On commission" suggests something entirely different, though, and both phrases are here.

When a farmer sells "on consignment", the farmer gets a percentage of the final price, period. If the goods don't sell, the farmer gets nothing. Selling "on commission" would usually just mean that someone (typically a salesman) gets some percentage based on sales. It doesn't have to be a straight percentage, it could be a formula (for example the salesman could get paid a percentage only based on exceeding a certain price). I suppose one could talk about consignment sales as a commission from the farmer to the wholesaler or to the middleman, but that's not how I've usually heard such arrangements described.

Anyway, if we can get clear on how the money really moved, who was paid when and by whom, it would be a lot more useful. - Jmabel | Talk 16:18, 8 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

along these lines, but not with that sentence, it seems to be that prices are somewhat fixed, particularly with produce. If one vendor is selling blueberries for $1.99 a pint then they all are. What makes this so? SchmuckyTheCat (talk)

Images we should have and don't

Roll call for vendors
A circa 1923 map to show how little has changed
At least one early (early enough to be public domain) pamphlet or poster
~~Produce daystall(s), crafts daystall(s), maybe even an outdoor vendor up near Virginia Street.~~ **DONE**

- Jmabel | Talk 03:03, 10 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

When, what, is roll call for vendors? I walk through at least twice a week, and I could go early. SchmuckyTheCat (talk)

I think he's referring to the 3rd paragraph in User:Rootology/Pike_Place_Market#First_expansion_years. I think the stalls (today) are long-term leases. By the way, sorry I haven't been doing as much the past couple days. I always get into weird shifts where I'll get twitchy to work in other stuff in spurts. rootology (C)(T) 16:43, 12 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Stalls are definitely not long term, though some are. There are some vendors I talk to and I've commented how they move around the market a lot. They laughed about it, but I was moving on and never caught why it was. SchmuckyTheCat (talk)

High stalls are long-term and are considered commercial merchants, but all of the low stalls are daystalls, and are for actual farmers or craftspeople. I think I've adequately explained that in the section "Policies". If you think that doesn't adequately explain the matter, let me know. I focused on the daystalls, but could say more about the commercial merchants. I didn't think it worth dwelling on, because they do business pretty much the same way as other small businesses in Seattle and throughout the capitalist world.

Roll call is still a daily affair. - Jmabel | Talk 18:13, 12 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

State of the rewrite

Outside of the "history" portion (still only about 1/3 written) I think this is now pretty good. Not FA level, but tremendously better than the existing article. Rootology, I gather that you are writing the history section, so I'll confine myself mainly to copy editing there unless specifically asked to do otherwise.

The only other part that I see needs work is the "Major attractions" section: largely inherited from the existing article, almost entirely uncited. I'll work on that next. At that point, I think it might be worth considering a partial merge to the main article, even if the history section is still work in progress. Since that section will eventually be an article of its own, I think we could do a digest in the main article, and keep sandbox just that part. What do others think?

In any case, before that merge someone should make a pass through the many sections I wrote. Copyedits are, of course, welcome, but I'm most concerned if anyone thinks anything important was left out that isn't likely to be well-covered in the history section. - Jmabel | Talk 18:19, 12 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well, all that heavy lifting is basically done, and over the next days/weeks I'm going to keep expanding out the history section, and then once the bulk of it is done from the Shorrett book, I'm going to go back with other sources to add more citations, and material. I just tossed up User:Rootology/Pike Place Market/draft which is a quick and dirty merge of our draft and the live article's remaining history section. Want to put this live on Pike Place Market and move this there? I can just keep adding subsections into the history section after there, from the guide layout on our existing draft. Deep copyediting/FAizing we can do on the live copy after, now that the body has been redone. What do you say? rootology (C)(T) 19:00, 12 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I could go with that, but have you (or has anyone) done a read-through/edit of the sections I worked on? And has anyone thought about the technicalities of the merge, so you and I each get credited for our respective work? - Jmabel | Talk 21:51, 12 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]