When the Greater Worcester Farmers’ Market opened for the season back in May, it was the first time in 23 years that Fran Shivick didn’t set up a stand in the downtown area.
Due to the $4 million Worcester Common Restoration and skating rink project that is under way, the popular outdoor market, along with a series of high-profile activities, events and festivals, have been displaced or forced to relocate.
Andrew O’Keefe, the market’s managing director, says he was informed by the city of the need to move last July.
“I looked all over; up and down Main Street for a replacement site,” O’Keefe says. “There was nothing. I can’t fault City Hall. They have been very supportive. The biggest problem the vendors have is with the weather and gas prices.”
Thankfully, the farmers’ market had its regular West Side spot in the parking lot at 306 Chandler Street to fall back on. There, on Mondays, Wednesdays — and now on Fridays from 9:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. — anywhere from six to two dozen vendors, depending on the season, set up tables and sell their produce.
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For years, Fridays were reserved for City Hall. With all the construction going on downtown, the market is now open three days a week at the Beaver Brook site.
“We have lost some customers, but gained others,” O’Keefe says. “We really didn’t miss a beat in the move.”
Standing in front of a stand of red tomatoes, cabbage, green zucchini, cucumbers and yellow squash, Shivick, who is also known as “The Tomato Lady,” says confidently, “It’s all fresh, local and healthy.”
Shivick and her husband operate the Shivick Farm in Oxford. Asked how she got into this line of work, she says, “My husband worked at Worcester Wire. The shop closed and he was out of work. We had five kids in the 1950s. We wondered, ‘Well, what are we going to do?’ We always had a good garden. We decided to make it bigger and make a go of it.”
In Worcester, Shivick runs Fran’s Veggie Stand. Last Friday she stood in 90-degree heat protected by a straw hat with a long visor and a handkerchief fortified with frozen gel wrapped around her neck. “I’m 71,” she says. “I’ve been up since 4:30 a.m. I picked for a couple of hours before I came in this morning. In life, there is nothing without work, but it’s very gratifying work.”
O’Keefe says that while the Beaver Brook site doesn’t have the foot traffic City Hall provides, it offers something more.
“Chandler Street works because of commuter traffic,” he says, “Also, we have developed a very dedicated client base in the area.”
While O’Keefe finds the Chandler Street setting ideal, he admits that it does have its drawbacks. He points to all the sports activities happening in the park and at Foley Stadium, which is across the street.
“I can use that site in the afternoons until the middle of August. Once school starts up you’ve got the football teams, the track teams and the Pop Warner games coming in. So by 3 o’clock in the afternoon that parking lot starts to fill up, which doesn’t do me any good.”
While City Hall remains the site of choice for Fridays, O’Keefe says he is entertaining offers for next year.
“I met with the Blackstone people,” he says, referring to members of the Canal District Taskforce. “If they can give me three acres over at the Wyman-Gordon site, I’ll show you how to run a farmers’ market 10 months a year. They can’t. The company still owns that property.”
Shivick says that while the move has taken her out of downtown and away from the regular patrons there, she recognizes its downside.
“Downtown, you’d see husbands drop off the wife and ride around the block a couple of times and then pick her up. This is a great spot. It has free parking.” o
