Maxwell Street: A Portrait of its Vendors

On August 28, 1994, during the last day at the "old" Maxwell Street market, vendors talk about their hopes or fears of the imminent move to a cleaner, safer, smaller, city-sponsored "New Maxwell Street Market" on the other side of the expressway. The University of Illinois at Chicago had been buying up property in the area south of Roosevelt and west of Halsted for decades and had decided to build and sell townhomes in the area as part of their urban campus expansion requiring this historic, pop-up Sunday morning flea market to find a new location. The city of Chicago stepped in with the idea to make it an official Chicago event with weekly fees of $30 per vendor, in place of any vendor holding just an annual peddler's license, but offering increased police presence and a guaranteed spot each week. Many felt the lottery that left over 800 vendors without a space unfair to the century-old free-market model.