HONESDALE, PA — The 6,600-square-foot space that used to house Gravity Alley is now filling another untapped niche for Honesdale as the Gravity Indoor Marketplace. Since its grand opening on April 7, the marketplace has featured a rotating array of vendors, offering for sale such goods as crafts, antiques, toys and jewelry.

“We have some anchor vendors that come every week, and then we have a turnover of vendors that come every other week,” says Jenny Young, proprietor of the marketplace and the adjacent Gravity Ice Cream. “So every time you walk in, you’re going to see something different. I didn’t want the customers to come in and say, ‘Oh, I’ve already been there; they have the same stuff.’ That’s not the case here.” Vendors have contacted Young by phone and Facebook; first-time vendors can set up shop for free in their introductory weekend.

For Young, the building’s new purpose represents an old ambition. “A long time ago, I used to be a vendor,” she says. “When I was in high school and college, I sold dog bowls and flower pots, and I really liked the whole vending atmosphere—it was a lot of fun. And when we first bought the building 19 years ago, there was a grocery store in here, and I had the idea to put a marketplace in, but we ended up putting a bowling alley in… and we did that for 15 years, and we loved it. And so now, we made a [full] circle and decided to put the marketplace in. So it’s been an idea that’s been brewing for a long time; it just didn’t come to fruition [until now].” Young is looking at the summer as a trial run for the future of the marketplace; although its business hours are currently restricted to Saturdays and Sundays, customer and vendor interest may prompt her to extend them into the rest of the week.

Wares to be found at the venue include skin-care products, beef jerky, lawn ornaments, burning barrels and housewares—and while Young is always looking for more, she’s very happy with the balance and range that the marketplace already offers. “I really think that… the variety is pretty nice,” she says. “I try not to have more than four jewelry vendors, not more than four crafting vendors, because we want the customers to have a wide variety of things to look at. So I think I have a little bit of everything. Of course we would like more vendors—I probably have 30 coming in this week, [and] I can fit 40... I’d like everybody to want to come down and at least check it out, and/or come for your free first weekend, so you can see if it’s a place where you’d want to market your things... I’m pretty much open for anything. I could use a couple of dealers for refurbished furniture, because the last couple of weekends, the people with refurbished furniture sold out, which is really kind of fun to say. It’s really nice to see that the vendors are doing so well.”

Gravity Indoor Marketplace, located at 106 6th St. in Honesdale, is open on Saturdays and Sundays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. For more information, visit Gravity Indoor Marketplace’s Facebook page at https://tinyurl.com/y7jot3a7 or call 570/253-0445.