There seemed to be a pretty strong turnout at Market Day today -- the lines at the food stands, artist tables, and the viewing entrance to the South Hall were long, the flea market felt as busy as ever, and Mayor Fenty, Congresswoman Norton, and Councilman Wells all spent time walking Seventh Street and talking to people.
Otherwise, we were surprised to see that there wasn't much in the news this morning about Market Day, so we just have a brief update. I just spoke with Nicky Cymrot, the president of the Capitol Hill Community Foundation; today's volunteer table at the Market again netted around $12,000, bringing the total to over $160,000. CHCF has gotten a lot of questions over the past few days about how they'll use the donated money, and Nicky said it remains the case that they will focus on the South Hall merchants -- providing funding for supplies, signage for their temporary stalls, help retaining their employees, and anything else that they can do to bridge the time until they can get their businesses back up and running as they were before the fire. They intend to have a more formal mission statement available in the next day or two.