If you got a new job back in the day where people went physically to a work location, you might be excited if your new job was located next to a farmers market. For many years, the folks who worked at CBS in Los Angeles had such a luxury.
The Original Farmers Market is on West 3rd Street on Fairfax Avenue in Los Angeles. CBS is at Beverly Blvd. (7800) with West 3rd Street being its southern border.
If you watched The Price Is Right, Match Game, The Carol Burnett Show, Tattletales, or any of the countless shows produced at CBS, you could have a sense of the history of that building.
Unfortunately, the Original Farmers Market is losing its most famous neighbor. CBS sold the building and is moving production of its shows out to Glendale in northeast Los Angeles.
The Original Farmers Market is not a traditional farmers market like you may visit on a regular basis. The location mostly has restaurants and a cute gourmet grocery store.
Still, the neighbors were a good fit. People in television who want to eat well. A farmers market that might get more business because of being located right next to a broadcast network.
CBS sold Television City to Los Angeles real estate investment company Hackman Capital Partners for $750 million in 2018. The company announced a $1.25 billion redevelopment of the facility, which is why the shows are leaving Television City. We don't know if those shows will return to West Hollywood, much less 7800 Beverly Blvd.
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In January 2019, I took the 720 bus from Santa Monica that went down Wilshire Boulevard to the Original Farmers Market. I got off at Fairfax, where the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures now stands. I walked 0.6 miles up Fairfax. People who live in Los Angeles would likely be shocked I walked that far. LA is very car-reliant.
While I was at the Original Farmers Market, someone mentioned how close we were to CBS. Since I walked in from the south, I hadn't noticed the large complex just to the north of the market. After a wonderful stay at the market, longer than I expected because it actually rains in Southern California, I walked north and crossed West 3rd Street to the southwest corner of what was CBS.
The tourists were more likely to notice a farmers market on their quest to see CBS where I approached the trip in the complete opposite vantage point. I was happy with my bonus. I remember Johnny Olson distinctly telling people if they wanted to be on The Price Is Right that the address was 7800 Beverly Blvd. in Los Angeles. There I was at the place with all those shows I watched as a child.
I've seen Match Game reruns where they mentioned the nearby farmers market. They joked about mugging the audience members in the parking lot after the show. You can't see the parking lot from Fairfax Avenue.
I can imagine CBS stars shopping at the Original Farmers Market maybe in a simpler time when that was more prevalent. Fresh, local produce is usually incentive enough to go shopping but a celebrity sighting could boost your interest in going to a farmers market. Unfortunately, that is less likely now that those shows will be in Glendale and not West Hollywood.
We could look at the arrangement as a blessing for multiple decades to have the entities close to each other. Yet we are sad that the relationship will not continue. You can visit the Original Farmers Market at Third and Fairfax and imagine that Carol Burnett and Richard Dawson went there on a lunch break, imagining what they might have bought.
photo credits: me
map credit: Google
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