My Memories of Being at the West Side Market

By Michael Boyd

My great-great grandmother took me to the West Side Market for the first time when I was a child, in 1971. As an adult, I think back on how it used to be and see how it has changed over the years. The area wasn’t called Ohio City back then, just W 25th.  There’s a bunch of old houses now, but at the time, they were relatively new. The area was more diverse than it is now. There would always be a lot of people at the Market, just like it is on Saturdays nowadays. 

I remember seeing live chickens at the Market! My grandmother told me to never buy a Cornish hen because it was really a pigeon! When she told me that, I thought that you could have Cornish hen every day, because of all the pigeons that were at the Market every day.

I also remember stealing apples from the West Side Market, with my cousin, when I was 7 or 8 years old. We lived in the projects that used to be near the Market, but never thought that the people would chase us all the way back to where we lived, and tell on us. My cousin and I never stole again after being beat for stealing those apples.

Now, many years later, there are a lot of new faces, including new owners. There are also some old friends like Greg at Stand 60; the hot dog people in the front who give me coffee; Travis also gives me coffee –you can smell his coffee as soon as you enter the market; and also the police.

I really appreciate the management at the West Side Market who allows The Cleveland Street Chronicle vendors to sell our papers at there. I’ve been selling the newspaper ever since I met Melvin “Buzzy” Bryant, who introduced me to the newspaper that was at the time called the Homeless Grapevine.

When I met Buzzy, we were both living on the streets and trying to hustle up money. One day, I asked Buzzy for money and he reached into his pocket and gave it to me. The next time I saw him, I decided to try to bully him out of some money. He looked at me and told me that I didn’t have to bully him out of money, he’d just give it to me. He did, and then he introduced me to the Homeless Grapevine newspaper and NEOCH. I’ve been selling the paper ever since. Buzzy and I were friends from that time until his death in December 2017.

The West Side Market and West 25th Street areas have gone through quite a few changes over the years. Even though I moved out of the area, I feel like I never left the neighborhood. Maybe because I always come back to it.