Reading Terminal Market To Expand Onto Filbert Street Every Saturday In October
By Pat Loeb
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Filbert Street will close between 11th and 12th Street Saturday so the Reading Terminal Market can expand, for the day.
The Market plans to make the street closing a regular Saturday event for the rest of the month.
It's part of an effort to re-imagine the Market's Filbert Street entrance.
Shadowed by the old Reading Train shed overhead, the Market's three entrances on Filbert Street can seem dark and forbidding.
"I was kind of a little nervous walking in but was willing to take the chance but I'm glad I did," said a visitor.
Indeed the rewards of entering are great but market manager Anuj Gupta fears too many people are put off.
"It does not represent an appropriate entrance in any way, shape or form for what is America's greatest market," said Gupta.
The Market won a $160,000 Art Place grant to redesign that part of the market, to make it more inviting -- a project that might include outdoor tables, music, and different kinds of vendors. Gupta calls the October Saturdays an experiment.
"We might as well start learning some lessons about how programming that space works or doesn't work," said Gupta.
