Peace, Love, & Comfort

The 8th Street Market brings together something old and something new, with a dash of blue.
by Megan Willome

Sometimes Robin Morgan sees a bride getting photographed beneath the words “Peace, Love & Comfort,” painted on the side of her building that houses The 8th Street Market. It’s the ultimate moment when the something old that is the shop’s antiques and the something new that is a woman in love come together. (And the word Comfort is even written in blue.)

That’s what 8th Street Market is all about — bringing together old and new, with a good cup of coffee on the side. The shop is owned by Morgan, with a little help from her sons Dustin and Scott.

The building was originally a 1940s Ford dealership, Stieler Motor Co. Over time it had been subdivided into several businesses, including a beauty salon and a Mexican restaurant. There were multiple entry doors and lots of debris. When Robin and her husband first came to look at the building with a real estate agent, he was interested, but she was not.

“He kept saying, ‘Go look at it.’ I’m like, ‘Oh, no. I’m not coming in,’” she said. Then she took a chance. “It was like a maze. I went into the very back, looked up and saw the ceiling, constructed with sections of World War II-era steel silos. The ceiling went all the way to the front. I thought to myself, ‘This might work.’”

Read the rest of the story in the fall issue of Rock&Vine magazine