City Market, National Historic Landmark marketplace in downtown Charleston, United States.
City Market is a market complex in downtown Charleston, South Carolina, stretching 1,240 feet (380 m) from Market Hall on Meeting Street through four one-story sheds to East Bay Street. Market Hall, designed by Edward B. White and completed in 1841, is a Greek Revival building with a rusticated arcade, a portico of four Roman Doric columns, and metopes carved with bucrania and rams' heads. The sheds have open stalls and center walkways.
The market began as the Centre Market after Revolutionary War general Charles Cotesworth Pinckney and other landowners donated recovered marshland in 1788, with the first sheds erected around 1790. The earlier Beef Market stood on the site of Charleston City Hall, not here, and burned in 1796. Architect Edward B. White designed Market Hall, completed in 1841 after an 1838 fire destroyed the headhouse.
Gullah artisans sell sweetgrass baskets at the City Market, a craft continued by their families since the 17th century. The coiled baskets, sewn from sweetgrass, bulrush and pine needles, are displayed alongside souvenirs and jewelry. Vendors often demonstrate the stitching at their stalls.
The market is open daily with shops and stalls typically opening in the morning and staying open into the late afternoon. Some areas are covered while others remain open to the weather, so visiting during mild temperatures makes for a more comfortable experience.
The upper room of Market Hall served as a military recruiting office at the outbreak of the Civil War. In 1899 the United Daughters of the Confederacy Chapter 4 opened a Confederate Museum there; it closed in 1989 after Hurricane Hugo partly removed the roof, then reopened after temporary housing in a Charleston kindergarten.
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