Cabbage (Cone, Napa, Purple, Savoy)
Carrots (Orange, White, and Purple)

Greens (Chard, Collards, Kale, Heirloom Mustard, Wild Nettles)
Ground Cherries

Honey
Leeks

Lettuces (Oak Leaf, Butter, Red Hued)

Dear Neighbors,

Picture change, this week!  We're skipping smiling me.  Instead, above you see a city scene, sort of similar to one you can find in our neighborhood.  There's a subway station, and behind it a street, on the edge of a square.  The white trucks belong to farmers, whose stalls fill the square behind them with an open air market.  Behind that is a residential building with shops--a butcher, a baker, a fish monger and a cheese monger, among others, on the ground floor. 

The picture was taken in Paris, France.  I think that square, market, shops and building are pretty cool.  So, I'm showing it to you because, with your support, we can have something like it here, in Logan Square.  In our lifetimes.  Maybe by...2018?

You probably know that the northwest quadrant of Logan Square, where the CTA buses drop people at our subway entrance, and the parking lot stretching down Emmet Street behind it, is owned by the City.  You may not know that the City is planning to change that space. 

Within the next six months to a year, the City will be putting out an "RFP" ("Request for Proposals") to all the real estate developers in the world, asking them to respond with their ideas for what's called a "Transit Oriented Development" for the site.  It's that process that's our chance.

It's our chance because, in the RFP, the City will describe, in general terms, what it wants that "Transit Oriented Development" (I'm just going to call it TOD) to look like.  If we work together, we can influence that. 

Well, I'm going to make a modest proposal.  Let's tell the City that whatever else they describe in the RFP, they should also tell the developers to be sure their proposals include a year 'round home for the Farmers Market.  Indoors, for the cold months, outside on the plaza when it's warm.  And stores surrounding it, to house the cheese shop, the wine store (the new Provenance?), the butcher, the fish seller.  A good deli.  A candy store.  Maybe a place to buy pots and pans, or a cooking school.  Small scale, neighborhood businesses that are connected with food.  And that could offer a few jobs for the people who'll live upstairs? 

Crazy? Well, besides the photo evidence from Paris, there is some high quality help already lined up for us, if we just take advantage.  The Metropolitan Planning Council, a respectable, reputable and influential organization, has committed to hold a series of three meetings here in the neighborhood to "Give Voice to Your Vision for Logan Square".  Once the meetings are done, they've promised to deliver what our voices tell them to the City, to be incorporated in that RFP.  You can learn about the process here. 

The first meeting is Tuesday, September 9th, from 6 to 8 PM, at the Hairpin Arts Center.  Same time and place for the second, on Tuesday the 16th, and the third on Tuesday the 30th. 

If you agree with me that a terrific development for our neighborhood would be to house our Farmers Market at its heart, twelve months of the year, seven days a week, visible and convenient to everyone, then put those dates on your calendar!  And while you're waiting for September 9, share your thoughts.  Send  an e-mail message, "Put the Farmers Market home in the RFP" to the Metropolitan Planning Council people,  Yonah Freemark and Breann Gala, the Project Managers.  Copy Jeff Wilson, at CTA Government and Community Relations, so he can pass it along to the right people downtown.  Of course, copy your Aldermen, Rey Colon or Scott Waguespack.  And while you're at it, copy me, so I can let you know how the process is proceeding.  Questions?  Ideas?  Want to help in other ways?  Just tell me, and...

I'll see you at the Market!