Union Market Builts Deaf-Design Near Gallaudet

Gallaudet University builts Deaf-Design "Union Market"

WASHINGTON, DC -- Serving Customers, without even talking by VOA on assignment. The market employs and deaf-design for Deaf community and Gallaudet students. A year-old food market in a Washington, neighborhood has become a unique hub of shopping and dining for the city's Deaf community.

Union Market has become a unique hub for the city's Deaf community.

The market employs and caters to Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing people, and also was built using deaf-design principles to make it easier for Deaf people to communicate. And as VOA's Michael Lipin tells On Assignment, the market is a place where Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing people can hang out together.

Related: Washington Food Market Becomes Hub For Deaf Community

Food Market Becomes Hub For Deaf Community

VOA's Michael Lipin reports on the key elements that help to draw many Deaf customers to Union Market.

WASHINGTON -- A year-old food market in a Washington, D.C., neighborhood has become a unique hub of shopping and dining for the city's Deaf community.

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One feature that draws many Deaf and Hard of Hearing customers to Union Market is the ability to communicate with staff members like Thadeus Suggs. The 23-year-old lunchtime food vendor from Seattle interacts with them easily because he is fluent in American Sign Language.

Suggs, who also is Deaf, began working at the historic market weeks after it opened in September 2012, following a major renovation.

Since then, Suggs has been on leave from his undergraduate studies across the street at Gallaudet University - the only university in the world specifically designed to accommodate Deaf and Hard of Hearing students.

With the help of Gallaudet interpreter Carolyn Ressler, Suggs explained what he likes about his job.

"One nice thing is it is so close to Gallaudet, which by the way is the 'Deaf Mecca'," he said. "And with that, we are providing services to the Gallaudet community as well as the community at large... Read The Full Story.