Sep 10, 2021
Historic New England celebrates the importance of local, immigrant-owned markets with More than a Market: A Walking Tour of Burlington’s Local Markets.
The walking tours are on Saturdays from September 18 to October 30, from 10:30 a.m. to noon. The tours visit locations of past and present-day markets in Burlington’s Old North End, sharing stories of market owners, their customers, and their communities, framed within local immigration history.
Participants will visit the former locations of the Italian-owned Izzo’s Market, remembered for the pungent smell of provolone cheese dripping wax on hot summer days, and George’s Market, where Georgie George ground the freshest beef in town for Lebanese kibbeh and served as a role model to neighborhood children. They will learn about the Tran family’s Thai Phat Market, one of the earliest Vietnamese markets in the city, which offers an array of sauces, spices, tropical fruits and vegetables, and grains. And they will hear about the Burlington Asian Market, where customers stop by just to visit, perhaps buying some freshly prepared chatpate, a favorite Nepali street food, to savor as they chat.
“These markets were considered essential businesses by their customers long before the term was coined during the pandemic,” says Community Preservation Manager Charlotte Barrett. “Stories of market owners who knew their customers by name, delivered food to the housebound, and helped newcomers navigate a new home, reverberate across time to the present day. Small in size but big in heart, these markets satisfy a universal longing to belong.”
For almost two hundred years, immigrants and refugees have called Burlington’s Old North End home. North Street was a vital commercial artery for the community with bakeries, confectionery and fruit stands, tailors, department stores, creameries, pharmacies, food and meat markets, kosher businesses, and more on every block. Today North Street is home to African and Asian markets that serve customers from all over.
The tour is part of a three-year project, More than a Market: Finding Community in Local Markets of Burlington and Winooski, Vermont. Historic New England recently launched a web app, MoreThanaMarket.org, that provides archival photos, audio clips, and stories about early markets and will expand with the stories of current markets as work continues.
Register now
The walking tours take place on Saturdays from September 18 to October 30, from 10:30 a.m. to noon. Register for a tour here. Wear comfortable shoes and weather-appropriate clothing for the 0.75-mile tour.