Sunday, March 6, 2011

Reflections













Here it is. This is where the picture of the Market as it used to be , comes from.
I am not going to spend too many words on it. The book is intentionally poor of text, as the photographer and author of the book lets the images narrate the content. I will only use the author's words, Nancie Gee ,first Chinese woman to author a photographic book in America, to describe the soul of the Pike Place Market that she so beautifully managed to capture with her camera:
"It is the melting pot where people of all nationalities and races have a common meeting ground, a place for old and young, a place where immigrant farmers have found a way to make a living and provide more for their children." In fewer words: the true American dream.
And at the end of the book, Marvin Reed, master market, observes:
"...it is the one place where people can revert to being just human , with no other requisite at all, where the ability to communicate, free of pressure and free of bigotry also frees one from the fast paced, high living society, of conformists and group-oriented people who seem to make up our modern society". And this was written in 1968.
The book was published in 1968, by Superior Publishing Company,Seattle, Washington, now not in existence anymore, although their books pop out every now and then and come my way, usually books about Washington's ghost towns or railroad history.