204th DTES Street Market and 18th Street Market of 2014

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204th DTES Street Market and 18th Street Market of 2014

May 5, 2014 ahamedia Leave a comment Go to comments

204th DTES Street Market and 18th Street Market of 2014

Roland Clarke, Coordinator of the DTES Street Market says:

It was a rainy spring day. Our 204th market at Pigeon Park on Sunday. In less than a month, we will be celebrating a full 4 years at Pigeon Park. The rain limited the number of vendors early in the morning, and made the set up phase quite a bit easier. No one likes working in the rain, but it was not too cold, so not many volunteers complained. This market was the eve of Cinco de Mayo, and we took the opportunity to play some Latin American music – Mana, Gypsy Kings, and more.

Cinco de Mayo is a celebration to mark the anniversary of the battle of Puebla in 1862 when a Mexican Nationalist force of 4,500 men under the leadership of Ignacio Zaragoza Seguín defeated a much larger French army (over 8,000 men). The French army at the time was considered the most professional in the world.

It took many years after the battle of Puebla for the French to finally withdraw from their Mexican colony, but after this date, no other European power attempted to establish a colony in the Americas.

This was our Cinco de Mayo market.

This was also the Star Wars market. The first Star Wars movie was a story of a small, ill equipped band of rebels who defeated a much larger imperial force…. OK I’ll stop. I hope everyone appreciates my sense of humor… ha ha ha

I walked around and handed out postcards for the Hastings Crossing Tool Share Library. This is a great joint initiative by the Street Market and the Hastings Crossing BIA. 62 East Hastings will hold a set of tools, and local businesses will be able to borrow the tools for free for a few days. We have a gas pressure washer, two leaf blowers, lots of shovels and rakes and assorted power tools. It is totally awesome.