This post appears courtesy of New Market Wilm. View the original post here.
Last time we headed out on Market with a camera and no plans, it was early spring, and people were flocking outside. Today, we’re riding the edge of a heat wave on one of the last days of summer, and most people are sheltering in place with the AC blasting. But there are some folks still outside, as we start this tour where the last one left off, at 5th Street and outside The Queen…
11:02am
Hanson plays tonight, and Danielle and Erin have been sitting and sleeping at the front of the line outside The Queen since last night, waiting for the show.
Danielle: “Honestly, we have hotel rooms, but we choose to sleep here. The hotel is where we go to the bathroom and shower.”
Erin: “So we won’t look like this for the show. I’m from Wisconsin, our friend over there is from Seattle.”
Danielle: “The next show is Hawaii and Lake Tahoe and then Disney in Epcot. But your guys at The Queen have been really cool so far. They said they’re going to give us a number system, and we’re thankful for that. Some venues don’t care and don’t want to honor who was here first.
Erin: “And this is one of the safer places that I’ve felt. We’ve had three different officers stop by to talk to us. The yellow shirt people, they stopped by too.”
Danielle: “For me, being front row for a Hanson show, it feels like a totally different connection than being in the back. I mean, there’s people who have a blast in the back. That’s me for different bands. But for Hanson, I want to be as close as possible.”
Erin: “You’re chasing the high of that last front-row experience, every time.”
11:12am
We duck into the cool, temperature-controlled environment of David Bromberg Fine Violins, where we find Teal Wintsch is in the workshop.
Teal: “Restoring a violin. That’s what I’m doing. It’s a John Juzek violin. This one was probably from the 1920s, so it’s been around for a while. It had a post crack in it, so I had to remove the top and repair that. We’re in the final stages of putting it back together. I’m going to make a bridge for it today, touch up the varnish, and make it sing again.”
11:22am
Inside DTLR VILLA, assistant manager-in-training Hasan Moody is presiding over a store that’s bustling in the back-to-school season.
Hasan: “This is my favorite part of the store. It reminds me of my childhood. I love graphic tees. Growing up Saturday mornings, no school, bowl of cereal, you had cartoons. I watched Looney Tunes, and in my time — I’m 19 — the Baby Looney Tunes were out. And all was well.”
11:39am
Crossing 7th street, we look up and see the Denim Bar Boutique, but it takes us a minute to find the stairs to the sleek, lounge-like boutique where owner Olu “Lu” Douglas is setting up.
Lu: “I’m from Wilmington. I always wanted to have a store downtown. I was walking around four years ago, looked up, that was it. I was here before Starbucks, Dunkin’ Donuts and Bardea.”
“My clothing line is called JoyRide Denim. On the jeans, that’s spray paint and rust. You take a bunch of paint and use sandpaper to scrape it off, to give it a rusted look.”
“When I opened, this spot didn’t look nothing like it looks now. I just remodeled. I wanted the floor to look like water. I don’t know why. I just thought it was cool.”
11:45am
The lunch crowd is starting to flow into Cavanaugh’s Restaurant, even as lunches are flowing out the door. They cater more than 40,000 lunches a year, says owner Tim Pawliczek. But it’s the restaurant’s long history and new look that he wants to show off today.
Tim: “Originally, this was a candy store and a candy factory. The third floor was packaging and stuff like that. The 4th floor, that was the manufacturing plant. They say at one point they had 125 employees, which is a lot of people for this building.”
“So for the last 15 months, I’ve been doing restoration work. The back windows are being rebuilt like they were a hundred years ago, out of white oak. I had to find custom woodworking guys. The wood out on the front of the building was all redone. That was from 1894. We had our doors taken off, taken away, totally taken apart, rebuilt. They’re a hundred years old, those doors. All told, it’s been $190,000.”
Well, that’s a chunk of change. And how’s the rest of your day on Market, Tim?
Tim: “My day is perfect. I don’t have bad days. I haven’t had a bad day in … I don’t even know. It’s not possible.”