Stoned At The Market

Italian Market merchants have long fretted about the $2.5 million "Renaissance" project which got underway last month. After all, trucks, backhoes and gaping holes do not make for good shopping and parking. Even if the work leads to a better shopping venue.

Vernon Anastasio, chair of the Renaissance Committee, wants to let the public know that the market will be open during construction. And yes, says Anastasio, motorists can park (three free lots!!!).

But Anastasio has a problem, one found in the budget. There is no money to advertise the market's "open for business" status while the dust hovers over South 9th Street.

Ah, but where there's a shill, there's a way. Witness the "I DIG the Italian Market" buttons coming to a vendor near you.

Anastasio reports the $1 charge for the buttons will be used to fund an advertising campaign. In addition, the committee will raise more money this summer by selling original cobblestones that lie beneath the 9th Street pavement for "probably no more than $5."

The stones, which are reportedly 200 years old, will be embossed with the words "Philadelphia Italian Market."

Anastasio notes that owning a stone "is owning a piece of American history."

"Besides, they did it with the Berlin Wall," he says.

Mariella Fante, owner of of Fante's Cookware and a member of the Ninth Street Business Association, says the the brick and pin plan is a "good idea."

As for market reaction on the Philadelphia Commercial Development Corporation's two-and-a-half-year project running down 9th Street from Federal to Catherine Streets, Fante says so far, so good.

"Construction always affects business," says Fante. "Hopefully, it's only going to affect the market to a degree."

The first phase of work has affected cart vendors south of Washington Street. Those merchants have been relocated onto Washington Street.

— Scott Farmelant