No word yet on Capitol Hill Poultry's reopening, though -- they're the last merchant to remain closed since the East Hall opening. We'll let you know if/when we hear anything!

I'll put up pictures tonight, but suffice it to say that the new East Hall building is everything that the Hill wanted and more -- the space is amazingly bright and open, the merchants are now back to more normal setups, and there's air conditioning! This morning's ribbon-cutting event was very well-attended, and throngs of people remain inside the building marveling at everything we've missed for the past four months.

Welcome back to the Market!

Update: the pictures are up!

A few merchants gave us more specific details on their plans for the weekend. Mike & Ray Bowers say that Bowers Fine Dairy Products will be fully-stocked; Eastern Market Grocery will have its full stock of pastas, sauces, olives, and pita bread, but won't have the normal grocery supplies yet. Canales Quality Meats is busily trying to work out what it'll have in stock, and Calomiris Fruits & Vegetables will be back to its normal variety of offerings.

Exciting!

In other news:

The Goethe-Institut Washington is going to be hosting a free panel discussion entitled “Bringing Eastern Market Back: Sounds, Pictures, and Historic Preservation” on Thursday, September 6th at 6:30 PM. (For those who're confused about the connection, the Goethe-Institut has a specific interest in Adlf Cluss, the German immigrant who designed quite a number of historic buildings in the District, including Eastern Market.) In addition to Cluss experts, participants in the panel include Baird Smith (the Quinn-Evans architect who's leading the South Hall rebuilding project) and Monte Edwards (one of our EMCAC members); it should be a great discussion.

Eastern Market Pottery has a new home! According to Gary Peterson's latest update, the group has started moving into space in the 200 block of Massachusetts Avenue, NE, and should be ready to open in September. As we get more information, we'll pass it along.

And of course, the opening of the East Hall won't interrupt the Eastern Market Music Series this Sunday. Scheduled to perform are Archie's Barbershop Jambassadors (at 10:30 AM) and the Bill Baker Trio (at 1:00 PM). As always, you can get more information about both groups at the CHCF website, and find them performing outside Port City Java. (Although I wonder if they'll find space by the East Hall this weekend? That would be ideal!)

• DC's Office of Property Management has named Stacy Norris as the new acting coordinator of issues related to Eastern Market. Her responsibilities include both the setup and oversight of the new East Hall as well as the rebuilding of the fire-damaged South Hall; she replaces Peter May, who stepped down from OPM earlier this summer.
• There's a nice article about how much work CHCF's Gary Peterson has done to help raise money for the Eastern Market merchants, a sum that tops $385,000 to date. Those who've worked CHCF's weekend booth on Seventh know how much passion Gary has for helping heal the Market community -- we all owe a lot to his energy and passion.
• Ben Weinstein reports on last month's EMCAC meeting, at which a main discussion point was whether or not the South Hall restoration should include installation of a skylight running the length of the roof. (There's debate about whether such a skylight ever existed in the South Hall, as well as questions about what the light would do to food safety and quality.)

I just wandered over, and it looks like the construction folks are finishing off the exterior of the new East Hall building! (There are a few more pix here.) The HVAC ducts are hanging from the building waiting to be hooked up to the housings that are patiently waiting in the Hine Junior High parking lot, and they've already wrapped a few panels on the eastern face of the building with a sky-blue wrapping that looks like it'll have all the names of the merchants on it.

Gary Peterson sent an update out today that said that it looks like August 18th is the fully-up-and-running date for the building, and that the CHCF intends to cover the costs of whatever the merchants need to make that date happen! The other news he passed on is that for now, the DDOT intends to keep Seventh Street closed to traffic on weekends, and will be evaluating the impact of the closing over the course of the fall.

DCist posted a bit yesterday about the anticipated opening of the East Hall, fleshing out details from the NBC4/Examiner stories with statements by Mike Bowers and information about the funds that've been raised or earmarked for the rebuilding efforts.

Finally, the Eastern Market Music Series will continue this Sunday, with the blues & R&B of Daryl Davis at 10:30 AM, and the Piedmont blues of Little Bit a Blues at 1:00 PM. Last weekend's performances looked to be pretty well-attended, which is great!

I took more pictures of East Hall progress yesterday evening -- they were out in the rain, putting the siding panels up on the new structure! -- but forgot to get them off the camera this morning. With any luck, they'll be even further along when I get home tonight, and I'll put a picture or two online.

This seems to be moving along nicely!

Hooray!