ROCHESTER PUBLIC MARKET
280 North Union Street, Rochester, NY 14609
(585) 428-6770
www.cityofrochester.gov

Annuals, perennials, vegetables, and garden items. Public market plant vendors. Market open year-round, Tuesdays and Thursday, 6 to 1, Saturdays, 5 to 3. Market open for “Flower City Days,” May through early June, Sundays, 8 to 2. Check Web site for exact dates. Plants direct from area growers. Special Sunday markets; see Web site for details. Some plants and supplies sold on regular market days. Public welcome.

Rochester’s century-old Public Market occupies nine acres in the heart of downtown. Operated by the city on the same site since 1905, it is open year-round and annually attracts 1.5 million shoppers. The market has the authentic, earthy atmosphere of a public space long occupied by wholesale vendors of meat, produce, and cut flowers. Touted as “the most diverse place in western New York,” the public market’s Saturday traffic alone can attract 30,000 visitors. People gather to shop, eat, schmooze, and people-watch. According to the Project for Public Places, a visionary advocate of quality public space, the Rochester Public Market succeeds as “a gathering place, a spot for politicians to campaign, a family shopping tradition, a destination, and part of the weekly routine.”

A century ago, the Rochester Public Market served wholesale produce and grocery vendors using horse-drawn carts. Public pressure forced the market to open for retail sales during an inflationary scare after World War I. Today, following a $3.5 million face-lift, the revitalized market is equipped with 300 open-air and indoor vending spaces. The Public Market combines what the City calls “owner-operated family enterprises and healthful farm-fresh quality” with “the values of wholesale shopping and the convenience of modern facilities.”

The place is hopping. According to the city, on regular market days (Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday), visitors can find “fresh fruit, meat, fish, poultry (live and prepared), eggs, dairy products, home baked goods, seasonal produce, flowers, plants, jewelry, dry goods, paintings, crafts, specialty foods, ethnic delicacies, decorative items, curiosities, and bargains, bargains, bargains.” A shopper might take home field greens, farm sausage, wild honey, and purple petunias.

Vendors are an ethnically baroque and colorful group of farmers, traders, artists, and entrepreneurs. Many farmers come from nearby Wayne County, which pretty much assures their produce is squeaky fresh. One of the few stands selling organic produce is GRUB (Greater Rochester Urban Bounty), staffed by Rochester Institute of Technology students working with inner-city neighborhoods to develop a successful farm-vendor business. The stand is easy to spot; just look for the slouching teenagers. Merle Palmiter of Palmiter’s Garden Nursery (see profile) brings a jewel-like array of fresh hot chile peppers, which he grows as a hobby.

In spring, the Public Market opens on Sundays for “Flower City Days,” a series of five Sundays in May and early June devoted to horticultural sales. Just when spring fever becomes a contagion, gardeners flock to the market to stock up on freshly grown annuals, perennials, herbs, and vegetable plants from area growers. Sunday vendors also sell garden-related supplies, structures, art, artifacts, and treasure-trash—what the city calls “lawn figurines, lawn furniture, mulch, topsoil, tools, and trellises.” Of course, nothing is really regimented. Gardeners who miss Flower City Days can still buy a few plants and garden objects at the regular market, or on other special Sundays such as “Homegrown at the Market” and “Greatest Garage Sales Ever.” (Schedules are listed on the Web site.) But Flower City Days is when eager gardeners really hit the market for plants.

Vendors at Flower City Days change from year to year, but some are regulars. Eaton Farms, a wholesale grower in Ontario, New York, usually shows up with fresh greenhouse-grown annuals, perennials, and herbs at wholesale prices. Wildwood Farms in Williamson sends in quantities of garden plants (and maybe fresh spinach and field greens) with college students working for tuition money running the booth. Cathy and Andy Matulewicz come from Penn Yan in a truck with their two kids, lots of plants, and a plant photo album. Howard Ecker, known as Howard the Hosta Guy, offers hostas, the odd grass plant, and the fun of dealing with a haggler worthy of an Eastern souk.

Bustle and elbow-rubbing are part of the public market experience. As journalist Christina Le Beau wrote in the Upstate Gardener’s Journal, “Most vendors seem to know their stuff. If not, many of the shoppers do. Half the fun of these Sunday mornings is trading tips with fellow gardeners.”

Everyone has a favorite spot for a bite to eat after shopping. Some wouldn’t miss the Mexican food at Juan and Maria’s Empanada Stop, whose owners, Juan and Maria Contreras, sponsor the Spanish festival in September. Others just go over to Scott’s for a fried egg sandwich.

Directions: The market is in downtown Rochester, off East Main Street. Local shuttle and bus service is shown on the Web site. Driving from the east, take Route 490 west to Plymouth Street/Inner Loop exit, bear left on Inner Loop Exit, and turn left onto East Main Street. Turn left onto Union Street and right into the Public Market. Bear right to park in a lot or side street.

Nearby attractions: The City of Rochester (www.cityofrochester.gov) and Monroe County (www.monroecounty.gov) together maintain 12,000 acres of public parks—one of the nation’s most generous park systems, including three Frederick Law Olmsted-designed landscapes and a world-class arboretum. The Ellwanger Garden, 625 Mt. Hope Avenue, Rochester, NY (716-546-7029; www.landmarksociety.org), once the private garden of 19th-century nurseryman George Ellwanger, is a preserved half-acre “secret garden” of perennials, trees, and shrubs. The George Eastman House, 900 East Avenue, Rochester, NY 14607 (716-271-3361), has a restored 12.5-acre garden and the International Museum of Photography and Film (with cool movie theater and amazing film archive).

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