For years, the space at the north end of Eastern Market, now occupied by Market 5 Gallery, was used by the DC Department of Transportation as a storage and repair facility for parking meters and department vehicles collecting dust.

In 1973 the Market 5 Gallery Organization, with a vision of the potential of this unique space, successfully convinced the District of Columbia government to provide the North Hall for the purpose of creating and providing a forum for our city's broad and diverse arts community.

That compact with the District resulted in the revitalization of an underutilized, dilapidated space into a unique community-centered venue for the arts. Today Market 5 Gallery's contributions to this city's cultural life are widely recognized.

Market 5 Gallery is a multicultural, multidisciplinary arts organization sponsoring programs that encompass all the visual and performing arts, crafts, and literary disciplines.

In the nearly three decades since its founding, the Gallery's mission and guiding purpose has been to encourage the creative expression of our city's many individual artists and arts organizations by providing a welcoming and affordable environment in which they can exhibit, perform, and sell their work.

Each year, the Gallery has continued to attract new artists, provided summer programs for the District's youth and has expanded its audiences throughout the Washington community.

The Gallery has provided hundreds of emerging visual artists with a first opportunity to exhibit their work, offered scores of performing artists and arts organizations an affordable space in which to present their productions to appreciative audiences, and developed outdoor activities that have presented artists, craftspeople and musicians with an opportunity to market their wares and at the same time enrich the Market's unique spirit.

Although we've existed for almost three decades with no heat, no running water, and no means to cool the space during the often brutally hot Washington summers, we continue to see a steady increase in artists, performers, and other groups seeking to use this unique space.

Plans for renovating Market 5 Gallery have been part of the overall plan for the restoration of Eastern Market for more than 11 years. But through a combination of continual community contention and governmental, political and bureaucratic delays, not a single piece of fallen plaster has been replaced, and visitors must still use the rest rooms at the Capital Hill Natatorium.

While we take great pride in highlighting our growth during the past years, we can also point to the pieces of roof that recently landed outside our door, or, more importantly, to the hundreds of hardy souls who shiver and sweat in our primitive facilities.

For many years, plans for restoring Eastern Market have been mired in controversy. It is essential that the plans that are developed have the support and the input of community residents and businesses.

Moving forward on the restoration of Eastern Market is an imperative for the Gallery, for its implementation will enable an expansion of our programs, the more effective use of our income and the fulfillment of our vision of an arts center that truly meets the needs of this city's arts community.

Sincerely,

John Harrod, Executive Director

 

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