Friday night was the Spaghetti Dinner at Christ Church where we sampled John Phillip Sousa's mother's spaghetti recipe and browsed at the silent auction. While there, Gary Peterson of the CHCF announced that the total amount raised for the Eastern Market fund (before the dinner!) was $320,000. The biggest recent addition was from DC United game last weekend. The organization donated $3 from each ticket sale at that game, for a total of $46,000. Gary mentioned that while these amounts were impressive, the CHCF was just starting to get a sense of what the merchants are going to need before they can begin operating in the temporary facility (which they're calling the “East Hall”) next month. The city has asked CHCF to help outfit the merchants with some of the equipment, much of it very expensive, they need to operate. The fundraising isn't finished!
Saturday was the dedication of the window murals at the market, and they are fantastic! City Administrator Dan Tangherlini and Councilman Tommy Wells were on hand for the dedication, though the mayor wasn't able to make it. (Did anybody else notice that Saturday was the only weekend day with construction activity in the Hine playground since they broke ground on the East Hall building? A bit suspicious...) If you haven't had a chance to see them in person, here's a photo album of the installations (found via the blog Painterly Visions).
The whole dedication ceremony had a rather festival feel, with the East of the River Boys & Girls Steel Band performing, and the kindergardners of Peabody School-Within-School in attendance with their teacher, Marla McLean, and sampling of their Eastern Market artwork.
While we're on the subject of art, check out this picture of the inside of the market from the photoblog of Ohad Ben-Yoseph. Ohad also grabbed the shot featured in this post last week.
Finally, the fall-off in business at the market here we've mentioned before is covered in a Washington Post article today as well. The article, “Vendors Ask, Where Is Everybody?”, is a good reminder that the word is still not out that the market is open and functioning. We've put up a page detailing the latest info on where and how each of the South Hall merchants is currently operating; tell somebody today!