Another manʼs treasure

Reporter

Lwiggins.roundupnews@gmail.com

Vintage, antique and art connoisseurs perused through an array of antiquities exhibited for sale at Los Angeles Pierce College over the weekend.

Convening every fourth Sunday, Topanga Vintage Market is the San Fernando Valley’s only open-air flea market, according to co-founder Lori Rotblatt.

“About four years ago I was looking around the valley and I was noticing no flea market,” said Rotblatt. “The closest flea market for anybody that loved vintage was either in Pasadena or Ventura.”

“The valley was missing a vibrant, open-air flea market and I live here so I came up with this idea to start one,” said Rotblatt. “We saw a void in the market and we decided to fill it.”

Vintage market co-founder Patrice Curedale said great success in the infancy of the organization rapidly outpaced the capacity of their original location in the parking lot of a west valley shopping mall.

“We started at the Westfield Promenade Mall on Topanga Canyon Blvd,” said Curedale. “We outgrew that pretty quickly so we thought we would approach the college and maybe they would be open to it, and they said yes.”

Every fourth Sunday, collectors browsing through more than 100 vendors, hunting vintage artisan items to add to their coffers travel from all corners of Los Angeles.

“On average we have about 160 vendors, and about 2600 customers every month.” Curedale said.

Strong customer turnout for the event is a trend that varies with shifting weather patterns, according to Curedale.

“When it’s a really beautiful day we will sometimes see over 3,000 people and when it’s a really hot day sometimes we’ll see only 2,000.” Curedale said.

Fostering healthy business environments which function more like family, oriented communities, is one of the many ambitions the Vintage Market strives to integrate into its operations.

“We wanted to build this business like a community,” said Rotblatt. “We wanted to really respect the vendors because they are the ones who make this market, without the vendors there is no market.” Rotblatt said. Curedale and Rotblatt further enforce their dedication to public service by donating vendor booths to non-profit organizations and academic clubs on campus. the Hollywood films are not the ones that are the best at addressing issues, even in a superficial way.”

“We often give a free space to local charities and nonprofits, and we can do the same thing for student clubs.” Rotblatt said.

“We also really want to encourage the student body to think of this as an opportunity to reach out to the public, and for any clubs that have any projects that they are doing to reach out as well.” Curedale said.

Food and drink concessions are available for sale at any one of the food trucks that border the market.

Tommy Marudi, owner of the 2015 award winning food truck “The Middle Feast,” from the Food Network’s “The Great Food Truck Race,” is participating as a vendor for his sixth time with Topanga Vintage Market.

“We’re here today from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m., feeding customers our number one dish, Chicken Shawarma.” Marudi said.

The Topanga Vintage Market is open for business rain or shine from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. every fourth Sunday of the month. Free parking is provided and admission is $3 per adult, kids under 12 are free.

These films go into great depth on alternative identities. High school and college is a time for people to find themselves and become comfortable with who they are as a person, according to Windrum.

“You have a lot of kids here [at Pierce] who are young and they are discovering who they are. There is a lot of qualities. Who you are as an intellectual, as a religious person, as a political person and sexuality is a part of identity,” Windrum said. “There are people who may not fit into the categories of gay or straight, cause

I don’t think gay is really that much of an alternative [identity] anymore, and that is good. It is becoming more and more like a normal identity so to speak, but the kids who are interested in other things have other issues.”

Windrum says a goal of the project is to learn about and approach these topics in a way students will find interesting.

“The thought was, let’s present something that will be entertaining and the students will enjoy. Then afterwards, there will be a panel discussion,” Windrum said.