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National Geographic : 2002 Jul
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WASHINGTON, D.C. Wallace Pruittgrew up on Tangier Island, Virginia, an isolated outpost in Chesa peake Bay where almost every one crabs, oysters, or fishes. As a boy, he took a 17-hour boat ride to Washington, D.C., to work on the Maine Avenue Fish Wharf at Pruitt's Sea food, a business begun by his father, Elisha, in 1933. Much has changed in Wash ington since Elisha's day. But the Potomac tide still lifts and lowers the fish barges twice a day, and Washingtonians still crowd the waterfront to bar ter with fishmongers from another world. And Pruitts are still there, hawking seafood. On a bright summer morn ing Wallace's son Stewart stares up from one of his 60 foot-long barges where fish and shellfish in a hundred or so varieties lie arrayed on shaved ice. The tide is out and customers tower over him. A plump woman in stretch pants and golden necklaces glowers down. "How much for the crab legs?" she asks, pointing to a five-pound pack. "Thirty-foiv," says Pruitt, in the soft accent of his home, where "time" is "toim" and "tide" is "toid." "It was 25 last week," says the woman. "No, ma'am, never 25." "I'll give you $30," she says. "Thirty-two," he says. "Thirty-one," says she. Pruitt cocks his head and, with a twinkle in his eye, asks, "Ain't you the girl I hugged last week?" So the deal is sealed in compromise and roguish goodwill, as it's been for a century and more at the foot of 11th and 12th Streets Southwest. The floating fish market is a corner of Washington tourists don't see, even though it's less than a ten-minute walk from the Tidal Basin and the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, a few minutes more from the Jefferson Memorial and Washington Monument. No signs point to the block-long market. Locals battle gridlocked roads and swarms of buyers on weekends to haul away live or steamed crabs, oysters, and fish of all kinds, all seasons. The closest most out-of-towners get are the massive, modern water front restaurants, just south of the barges, which lure tourists by the busload. Between the market and the restaurants, the Gangplank Marina and the Capital Yacht Club provide slips for around 400 boats, Francis Case Memorial Bridge offers a gull's-eye view of fish market and marina. BUSHELS OF CRABS SOLD AT JESSIE TAYLOR'S SEAFOOD ON JULY 4: 600 TYPES OF SEAFOOD AVAILABLE EACH DAY: 50 to 100 FULL-TIME MARINA RESIDENTS: 139 "live aboards" in 107 slips SMALLEST BOAT WITH TWO RESIDENTS: The Pequod, a 31-foot sailboat LARGEST BOAT: The 104 foot Sequoia, a former presidential yacht LARGEST LIVE-ABOARD DOG: Isabella, Great Dane NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC, JULY 2002
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