Life Goes on in the Shadow of Tragedy

By Mark McGuigan
Staff Writer

July 20 -- The Farmers Market opened for business again Saturday morning, the images of loss continuing to assault the senses and adding a surreal twist to events that were once a part of the everyday fabric of city life.

People wept as they picked through fruit. A stuffed pink flamingo straddled the bronze dolphin sculpture -- once a donation bank for the homeless, now the center of a memorial to the dead and injured.

Throughout the marketplace, customers hugged vendors after buying fruit -- a simple act that became as much a part of the transaction as any exchange of money.

The decision to re-open the farmers market a mere three days after 86-year-old George Russell Weller hurtled down the two-and-a-half block stretch of street in his Buick LeSabre killing ten people and injuring fifty others had been a collective one.

“Because we manage the farmers market we’ve been in touch with the merchants since this happened,” Mayor Richard Bloom told The Lookout. “I don’t think there’s any way this would have gone ahead if the vendors had not wanted to have a market.”

“The normalcy is good, it makes me feel a lot better,” said vendor Grant Reed. “There are a lot of people walking around that are happy we’re here, and we’re happy they’re here. Unfortunately there are people that aren’t with us, and that’s a damn shame.”

“Do you see all these places…black?” asked vendor Halil Parlar gesturing at one square four feet from where he stood. “There were people here, wounded, dead. All these black marks on the floor, it’s not dried yet, it’s fresh, it happened just the other day.”

Once glimpsed, the black squares on the asphalt became impossible to ignore. The marks were everywhere -- a checkerboard of calamity.

This fact nettled the conscience of Halil Parlar as he stood in the center of the marketplace protesting the timing of the re-opening. His fruit stall was one of the first the maroon Buick LeSaber shot past after barreling through the plastic barriers on Wednesday afternoon.

“I am not worried about me, I am worried about the children and the innocent people,” Halil said. “This place is not safe. I will not go back to work until they do something.”

Holding aloft a handmade sign constructed from two pieces of white card tacked to an empty orange crate, his message implored the need for ‘Safety First’. On the flipside however, a more stinging question: "Open Before A Memorial?"

Mayor Bloom had an answer. “Some people were upset that we re-opened this morning, but, on the whole, the feedback I’m getting is that it was the right thing to do,” Bloom said.

“People really need to come and feel the energy of this place and it’s very much a healing force for a lot of people,” the mayor said.

But as is often the case when tragedy strikes on so grand a scale, confusion and acrimony are never far away. The question on the mind of many traders working in the thicket of stalls: "How could this have happened in the first place?"

“I think there’s a lot of animosity,” replied vendor Herb Stoltz when asked to gauge the feelings of the community. “They didn’t quite understand why this happened or how it happened. People are shocked, people are upset.”

On Saturday, the City was taking extra precautions. The thin veil of protection that horrified vendors had watched being crushed on Wednesday afternoon was gone. At the far ends of the market, the plastic sawhorses that usually bracket the nearly three-block stretch of stalls were replaced with flatbed trucks.

“We will be reviewing everything,” Mayor Bloom told The Lookout. “Whenever there’s an event that calls our attention to any kind of safety issue, we look closely at it and see if our way of doing things is appropriate. If there are changes that can make a difference then we try and make them.”

If the appearance of these metal sentinels at the entrance to the market signaled a subtle shift in policy, the newly fortified street also mirrored the changed role of the market on Saturday morning.

It was still a place to meet and chat, a center for advice on all things horticultural, a haven for family-run farms. But on Saturday, it was also a salve for a community in pain, a place to come to grieve while buying provisions.

A broken-hearted Dina Ferrentino -- a resident of the area since 1963 -- referred to the people of the farmers market as her “friends and family.” Devastated by the events of the week, she found solace in the bustling stalls as she did every week.

“I’m widowed and lonely,” she said, her voice cracking. “Coming here takes the loneliness away for a little while.”

"It shows the resolve of the community to move on, the resolve to be able to heal," said John Foster, a street performer.

At the corner of Third Street and Arizona Avenue, on a makeshift stage bedecked with flowers and vegetables, religious leaders, the mayor and farmer Fred Kosmo -- wearing his overalls and flannel shirt -- praised the actions of the farmers, patrons and emergency crews and prayed for the victims and their families.

"Our prayers go out to the families of those who died," Fred Kosmo said. "We hope that the memories of those lives will be cherished. We pray that those who were injured and maimed will live and have a recovery from their injuries.

"I was in the Marine Corps, there weren’t many atheists there, and there weren’t many atheists on Wednesday," Kosmo told the crowd. "We hope and pray that there will be recoveries. This market has been a place of joy and happiness and goodness. No one expected that. We hope that in the future it will be that." (Kosmo's full speech)

As various religious leaders in the community consoled hundreds of mourners with gentle words of remembrance and tribute, around the corner from the stage customers continued to buy their produce. And that, some thought, was tragic.

“I think a memorial service on a day when the market is fully open demeans the memorial,” said Straughan Petrie, a witness of Wednesday's tragedy who was protesting the market's opening.

“You can attend the memorial and then get something to eat here if you’re hungry and have the appetite for it.”