Remembering Maxwell Street

In the shadow of the Loop's skyscrapers, there once was an open-air bazaar with sights, sounds and smells that seemed magically transported across time and space from some Old World village. The Maxwell Street market -- its principal thoroughfare was just south of Roosevelt Road on either side of Halsted Street -- was the ancestor of today's suburban flea markets. "There is the sharp odor of garlic, sizzling redhots, spoiling fruit, aging cheese, and the strong suspect smell of pickled fish," the Trib's Lloyd Wendt wrote. "Everything blends like the dazzling excitement of a merry-go-round."