Marshall Street Pushcarts Mural
The mural depicts the lively atmosphere once generated by Marshall Street's "pushcartnicks." Immigrants of all backgrounds and creeds shopped at this open-air market. Although in violation of the city's "Blue Laws," prohibiting commerce on the Christian Sabbath, the authorities looked the other way as Marshall Street merchants and shoppers conducted a bustling business on Sunday mornings. In Voices from Marshall Street, Elaine Krasnow Ellison and Elaine Mark Jaffe write, "…Sunday morning was one of the busiest times. Shoppers packed the bakeries for bagels, salt sticks, pastries … Somehow no city official bothered the storekeepers…By 2 o'clock, when traffic died down, store owners would turn off the lights" (50). Most residents shopped daily, sometimes two and three times a day, for fresh meat and produce. This constant, lively street activity kept the neighborhood safe and vital until the early 1960s.
References
- Ellison, Elaine Krasnow and Elaine Mark Jaffe. Voices From Marshall Street: Jewish Life in a Philadelphia Neighborhood, 1920-1960. Philadelphia: Camino Books, Inc., 1994.
- Whiteman, Maxwell. "Philadelphia's Jewish Neighborhoods." in The Peoples of Philadelphia: A History of Ethnic Groups and Lower Class Life, 1790-1940, edited by Allen F. Davis and Mark H. Haller, 231–254. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 1973.
Map
Map
Address
on the left of the 900 block, looking south
