Somewhere to Flea By Annie Groer Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, May 31 2001

The Georgetown Flea in full swing. Photo by Marie Poirier Marzi for The Washington Post

If city zoning officials pull the plug, Washington's celebrated outdoor bazaar for antiques and oddments may well be doomed in its current location.

There will be much gnashing of teeth by displaced vendors and patrons who, since 1988, have made a Wisconsin Avenue school parking lot their Sunday ritual. Wealthy matrons, impecunious students, tourists and locals alike have spent hours there searching for that perfect thingie or savoring a sense of community.

Hardy Middle School is the fourth site of the Georgetown Flea, which began in 1973. Although Hardy's new athletic field has shrunk the parking lot, leaving space only for 65 dealers from the more than 100 that used to participate, the Georgetown flea retains a certain cachet.

But take heart, ye lovers of previously owned, creatively recycled and newly crafted goods for home and garden. There are other area fleas filled with furniture, rugs, pillows, lamps, vases, paintings, garden accessories, crockery, cutlery, books, clothing, jewelry, coins, stained glass and more. There are even a few where you can sell your own treasures or rejects.

Join us at five local favorites, chosen for their charm, location, inventory, longevity, diversity and an indescribable ambience.

What makes the Georgetown Flea Market so special?

Perhaps because it's a local hangout and global tourist magnet, with occasional celeb-sightings of the likes of "West Wing" hunk Rob Lowe and actress Diane Keaton.

Senate environmental aide Sara Barth gladly spent $70 last Sunday on a small, beautifully refinished vintage oak table for her apartment. "The newer stuff has no character and is three times as expensive. Plus this is recycling wood, which is consistent with my personal politics."

Such delight is common at the flea, site of serendipitous discoveries and decades-long dealer-client friendships. But the market's relations with several neighbors and school officials have been strained of late.

Next Tuesday, founder Michael Sussman hopes to convince the city's Board of Zoning Adjustment to let him stay at Hardy on Wisconsin Avenue near S Street NW. Last year, the Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs ruled that the market is a business run in a residentially zoned area, and denied him a certificate of occupancy.

Michael Johnson, the agency's zoning administrator, calls the flea "wonderful," but he adds, "I made the decision he is operating unlawfully due to complaints by others...My job is to enforce the law."

Sussman contends he does not need an occupancy certificate because the market predates the requirement by two years.

Managers of the Saturday and Sunday markets at Capitol Hill's Hine Junior High are watching the case carefully to see if in the future they may have problems with issues of vending on school property.

Sussman vows to go to court if his appeal is denied.

He also vows, no matter what happens, to start another flea in Arlington this summer. He'll also keep his Saturday/Sunday market at 1345 U St. NW, which opened during the 1999 Hardy parking lot construction and contraction.

The flap worries dealers like Phyllis and Reggie Wheat, who have sold furniture at this flea for a decade.

"We have parents bringing their sons and daughters to set up their first little apartment, we have news media people, we have diplomats. Cora Barry, the former mayor's wife, has bought things here," she says.

Although they own Blair Road Antiques in Northwest Washington, Wheat says, she needs the flea. "I can get more people on Sunday in Georgetown than I can Wednesday through Saturday in the store."

1800 block of Wisconsin Avenue NW. Sundays all year. 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. 202/296-4989. www.georgetownfleamarket.com. Reserved spaces for regulars; waiting list for newcomers.

Capitol Hill might be all about legislation and lobbying Monday through Friday, but on weekends it's a flea-ring circus, complete with artisans demonstrating their work and vendors selling produce, food and flowers in and around the dilapidated but beloved Eastern Market.

On Saturday, 100 dealers and craftspeople throng Hine Junior High School at Seventh and C streets SE. Need a $45 wall-hung coat rack made from a gussied-up old headboard? How about an $1,100 chrome pay phone mounted inside a rainbow-lit plastic seashell?

The Eastern Market's North Hall, across the street, is abuzz with artisans selling their creations.

On Sunday, 125 Hine vendors sell a wider array of old and new: $10 Russel Wright plates, $35 mink-covered stools, $5 Harry Potter hardbacks and Mexican tile-top tables up to $425. Oh, yes, the Hawaiian shirts are quite nice too. An additional 175 Eastern Market exhibitors offer items from wildly painted, $8 ceramic drawer pulls to a $200 vintage sofa to splendid produce, flowers, jewelry, collectibles, art and clothing.

"I sell handmade silk pillows for $10 to $35 to build my business. They are priced low so people will come to know my work," said Karen Atkins Purifoy, whose Kaotik Designs shop in Northwest Washington offers custom upholstered and accent pieces.

Despite a tangle of lawsuits and disputes with the city over the management of several Eastern Market entities-including both Sunday fleas-things appear altogether normal to outsiders.

During last Saturday's downpour, Alexandrians Maurice and JoAnn Vaisman blithely studied two tables of blue and white hand-painted Polish crockery, which was selling from $5 for a small bowl to $55 for a covered casserole. They bought a dozen pieces for $150 (with a healthy volume discount). "We already have about 40, in all different patterns, so this has been a good day," she said.

Ditto, noted a woman who lives a few blocks away from the Eastern Market. "I see friends, and being here has a calming effect even if I don't buy."

Hine Junior High School, 310 Seventh Street SE. Every Saturday of the year. Spring and summer hours: 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. 703/470-4494. www.capitolhillfleamarket.com. Eastern Market and Hine Junior High. Sundays, March through December: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.www.easternmarket.net. 703/534-7612. Vendors in all three must apply in writing for space and have a D.C. sales tax number.

Amid this increasingly congested urban concrete canyon sits a quaint green and white frame building: the Montgomery County Farm Women's Cooperative Market, founded in 1932 by 50 women to sell their produce directly to consumers.

Most of the week, it sits empty. But on Wednesdays and Saturdays, it comes alive with the sight and scent of fresh flowers, meat, cheese, jams and baked goods. In 1974, a Sunday flea sprouted in the empty parking lot, which today draws about 30 dealers. A year later, capitalizing on the Wednesday and Saturday customer flow, smaller fleas were opened in a portion of the parking lot and out front.

The midweek action recently caught Samson Abraham's eye while he drove along Wisconsin Avenue.

"Fifty dollars," said dealer Mike Burnett as Abraham perused a 1940s mahogany end table.

"We have to negotiate. Forty" countered Abraham, of Silver Spring.

"Forty-five," shot back Burnett

"Forty-three. Will you take a check?"

"Yes, but I'll have to charge you tax."

Instead, Abraham bought a small, 1890s oak pedestal table for $105, haggled down from $125.

Other regular dealers displayed African carvings, mirrored Indian fabric, even a $4,000 prototype suite of Liberace-worthy, fake-stone necklace, bracelet and earrings.

The Sunday scene often bustles with more dealers and buyers.

Moamber Ahmed, a nine-year vendor, explained that, "People who know their rugs buy at the market. Those who don't, they do not trust us." Moments later, however, he made two sales to novices: a red Turkeman for $275 to an Alexandria couple, after showing them where it had been repaired; and a $200 orange Turkeman to a Greenbelt gas station owner who found Oriental rug store prices "astronomical. I think I have a good deal here."

Tables in the rear lot often are laden with handmade soaps, used housewares and clothing and inexpensive new smalls. Go have a look. That $1 silver plastic pen shaped like the space shuttle might make someone very happy.

7155 Wisconsin Ave. Bethesda. Sundays, March through December: 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. 301/652-2291. www.bethesdafleamarket.com. No reservations required. Spaces available ($15 to $25). Wednesdays and Saturdays, 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. 301/652-2291. Spaces reserved for regulars ($17-$40); waiting list sign-up inside building between 6:30 and 7 a.m.

The 29-year-old flea market near the shopping mall in Columbia once boasted several hundred dealers, first inside the mall itself and then out on its vast surrounding parking lot.

But the numbers dropped sharply in 1999, when the flea moved to a nearby covered parking garage that is rather dark and far from the mall's eateries and restrooms. (There are, however, Porta-Potties onsite.)

These days, the Columbia market draws about 80 vendors to its first-of-the-month "Super Sundays" and 30 on other Sundays. The merchandise – antique and vintage furniture, accessories, jewelry, crafts and gifts – is definitely worth checking out, particularly if you are planning a trip to the mall or are catching a concert at Columbia's Merriweather Post Pavilion.

At last Sunday's non-Super flea, it was possible to snag a 1950s gray formica kitchen table with terrific chrome base for $150. A 1960s aluminum clock with the faces of U.S. presidents from Washington to LBJ was marked $10. (Confession: I grabbed it for eight bucks.)

A most arresting piece was a caned "Indian planter's" lounge chair with an unusually wide body and long armrests. "The idea was the planter would come in from the field, stretch his legs out along the armrests and wait for a servant to remove his boots and make him a drink," said Ellicott City dealer Jerry Albright. ($1,200, servants not included.)

Ellicott City homemaker Deborah Walburn hits Columbia once or twice a month with her dog, Lulu. (Most fleas allow handheld or leashed beasts.)

"I've been collecting for 20 years – vintage clothing, furniture, antique jewelry. If things are too pricey, I just have fun looking. It gives me ideas for my own things," she says. "I like to see how old furniture is painted."

There is also this incentive: "The vendors all know Lulu. People have actually said, 'Your dog looks so cute, take this.' It's nothing valuable, but she gets a lot of attention."

Sundays, April 22-Oct. 28. 8 a.m. -3 p.m. 800/676-2188 or www.bellmanevents.com. Collectors can sell new and vintage items only on Super Sundays and only on the top (outdoor) level; $25 prepaid per space, subject to merchandise approval by management and regular dealers.

Heads up, early birds. At the Arlington Civitan Community Garage Sale on the first Saturday of each month, many of the 160 to 200 vendors set up Friday night. And they'll sell as they unload, so eager buyers can shop hours before the official 7 a.m. opening.

Since the 1980s, the Civitan service club has raised money for charity at the garage at 15th and North Quincy streets by charging vendors $10 per parking space (some rent five or six).

Most spots are taken by dealers from as far away as North Carolina, whose antique and vintage furniture and accessories are shop-quality. On a recent visit, one could snag a refinished oak Hoosier cabinet for $350 or six 1985 Kentucky Derby glasses for $30.

But the Civitans also welcome amateurs.

"We still get people cleaning out their garages and selling stuff here because it's first-come, first-served," said Philip Rickey, incoming chapter president.

Dealers love this, because very often the "real people" have no idea what their stuff is worth. It's not unusual for a canny pro to buy a $2 item, clean it up and, within minutes, slap a $20 price tag on it.

Carole Lieber of Arlington brought everything to the garage from her rained-out yard sale. "It was very easy, very congenial. I had one small table and put the rest on the ground. I sold a vacuum cleaner, some books. My stuff was probably not as nice as other people's, and I was in kind of a dark spot," said the defense agency branch chief.

"I only made about $20, and then I bought food, but I had a real good time. It's a great organization and a wonderful flea market. You go there and see neighbors, people you don't normally run into. That may be one of the drawbacks. It's a very social atmosphere."

15th and North Quincy streets, Arlington. First Saturday of the month, April through November, 7 a.m. to 1 p.m. 703/525-9840; $10 per parking space.www.civitan.org/userpages/Arlington.html