Snow Xue XIA

Haymarket, the Memory of Boston

On Friday morning when the wind cuts one to the bone, at the bustling open-air Haymarket, vendors are crying out their wares and buyers are rushing from different parts of the city. Joe Lapage, standing beside his seafood stall, is watching young and old, foreign and domestic, women and men come and go in the market.

Joe, a 42-year-old Bostonian, has a pair of blue glaring, beaming eyes and blonde beards encircling his white teeth. He wears a grey sweatshirt and light blue jeans, with light smell of seafood.

Joe works on every Friday and Saturday, year-around. He starts working at 5 am, replenishes his cart with fresh seafood bought from distributors, and sets up a tent and a stall two blocks away from the New England Holocaust Memorial. He slices cod, salmon, and tuna into pieces, and refrigerated snapper, sardines, and yellowtail. At 8 am, everything is ready. The market is about open.

Many vendors bring their kids here. These kids are giggling, frolicking around his booth. Joe smiles at them, reminiscing the days when his father took him down to the market.

“I have a lot of fun here,” he said.

Joe has been working at Haymarket for two decades. Joe’s father, who passed this business to him, had worked as a seafood seller for 50 years. His grandfather did it for 75 years.

Like his father, Joe often brings his 5-year-old son to the market. He said that the greatest thing about being a seafood vendor is to feed his son with all kinds of seafood because his son eats a lot.

When asked about whether he expects his son to inherit his family’s tradition of selling seafood, Joe shrugged, “Oh, well, if only he wants to.”

For Joe, two-centuries-old Haymarket, which was founded 40 years earlier than American Revolutionary War, means more than livelihood. It is bound up with their memories of the city as the three generations of Joe’s family grew up here, and feel the breath, pulse of Boston.

“I have seen a lot of changes here,” said Joe, “the market used to be larger than what is now.”

When he was young, Haymarket reached far beyond Blackstone Street. But now the market barely touches this street. The development, zoning projects of the city have led Haymarket to shrink every year.

A highway stretches over the all of the pushcarts. Also, a six-story Haymarket hotel is about to break ground on Blackstone Street and Greenway the following spring, and developers will renovate facilities for trash and restrooms for vendors.

“Some people give up selling produce here,” Joe said. “Many people give up the business and don’t want to sell their licenses to others.”

But to Joe’s relief, the market is always here. Joe has witnessed the market becoming more diverse. Through much of the 20th century, the majority of Haymarket vendors were descendants of Italian. Over the recent years, immigrants from more than 20 countries have flowed into the market, hawking and chattering in different languages, and serving ethnic groups and people from every income level.

Diagonally across from where Joe stands, a family from Cambodia pulls cabbages out of cartons, babbling and beaming. With a heating device, their tents are cozy, amiable, resistant to the cold of 19.4 Fahrenheit. Right behind him, a Syrian immigrant is dashing all over the place to get change for his hundred-dollar bill.

When time passes 10 o’clock, the crowd of customers is dispersing, and the hubbub of voices turns into serenity. Joe puts his hands into his jean pockets and strolls to his neighboring stall. He helps his fellow arrange fresh vegetables and fruits in good order, and sprinkles water onto them. The vendor of the neighboring stall patted on Joe’s back. Joe winked at him.

Joe points his finger at a pile of strawberries. Two boxes, weighing about two pounds, only cost $5. “Except here, you have nowhere to find such cheap strawberries,” said Joe, unfolding his hands in the air, raising his eyebrows.

Boston is a such an expensive city with cost of living 39.7 percent higher than the national average. Only at Haymarket, you can buy a box of blueberries for $1, each cauliflower for $2, half a meter-long salmon fillet for $9, much lower than the cost of produce at the supermarket. This is the market that carries on the tradition of serving those underserved.

Joe has become a part of Haymarket and its history, and Haymarket has also become a part of him. As Joe is heading back to his stall, he said, “Welcome to Boston!”