The Westside Market, Cleveland, OH.

One hundred year old neoclassical brick is likely responsible for the West Side Market’s municipal look. Opening the doors, I expect stairs leading down to a subway platform, a bared ticketing booth, or a wooden bench darkened with use and covered with the carved expletives of disgruntled citizens, but instead there is another set of doors.

The space inside is massive, and the vaulted ceilings serve as a sort of tilt-shift lens, turning the crowds of shoppers milling around the booths into miniatures. Each booth offers a different discovery. First I bend down to get a closer look at the pig behind the butcher’s glass, before asking an old italian man for a pound of uncured bacon. The cheese is arranged in piles across the aisle, but I get side tracked by filled-to-order cannolis. I swim through half focused crowds to get a better look at the characters behind the counters and the strange stock they sell in every tiled corner. The West Side Market is not the best place to do a bit of quick grocery shopping. You won’t find the cereal you eat for breakfast here, or the ice cream you eat for dessert, but I came shopping for experience, and bought at every booth.

Words by Dylan Nord, Images by James Nord