There’s a stench from Florida Avenue Market

It’s not the smoked goat or the mutton legs on sale at U.S. Farms Cash & Carry. It’s not coming from the pile of plantains at the Mexican Fruit place. Or the wheels of Reggiano Parmigiano at A. Litteri’s Italian Market. The stench comes from the plan to bulldoze the longtime wholesale market to make way for new housing and offices and a few bones for the community. Spiffing up the funky market makes good sense. But longime merchants feel railroaded by a plan being shoved down the city’s throat by outgoing City Council Member Vincent Orange.

They have good reason to feel choked. Orange is carrying water for Sang Oh Choi, a businessman who has contributed to Orange for years and supported his failed bid for mayor. Choi accompanied Mayor Anthony Williams on his five-day trip to South Korea. Williams supports his development. The dude is wired. But not wired enough. Choi hired former Council Member John Ray to lobby the deal through D.C. Council. Ray will represent anyone. He’s made the case for off-shore gambling interests who wanted to bring slots to the nation’s capital. They lost, but Ray was paid handsomely for failing.

I was pondering this tangle of money and power Wednesday afternoon as I shopped for wine at A. Litteri, perhaps the best place in the city for mid-priced red wines, olive oils, wine vinegar and such.

Brothers Mariano DeFrancisci and Antonio Litteri opened the shop in 1932. Mariano’s daughter, Geraldine, 80, still owns it. Her son, Michael, is at the register every day. Next year will be 75 years in the family. How would his business be affected by the “New Town” development?

“I honestly don’t know,” he tells me. “It all happened too fast.”

Indeed. Ray and Orange lobbied hard in the community first. Then they met with some market land owners and gave them three options, according to the those at the meetings: sell to us, give us your land and become part of the new development — or face the prospect of the city buying your land under eminent domain.

Orange tried getting city approval with emergency legislation. Failing that, he tacked his “public-private partnership” onto an affordable housing bill, which passed this week. For sure, development is washing up against the industrial zone that’s been home to the indigenous market since 1929. But wiping the market from the map would be a sin.

We have precious few places that make our city rise above being a transient, government town. There’s Eastern Market and the Maine Avenue Fish Market and the Florida Avenue Market. Other cities have used their local markets as the center of development. San Francisco and Boston and New York come to mind. Yet each of our markets has been threatened by developers.

Everyone could come out of this deal smelling sweet, if the plan preserves the market, first. Meanwhile, I left Litteri’s with five great bottles of red — and a sub.

Harry Jaffe has been covering the Washington area since 1985. E-mail him at hjaffe@washingtonian.com.