Where everybody knows your name

They gather, creatures of habit and caffeine, on hard chairs around wobbly tables. If you sit here long enough -- as they have -- and come back often enough -- as they do -- the world will come to you.

On the East Patio of Farmers Market, you will hear the languages, see the faces and sense the textures of Los Angeles. Like TV’s “Cheers” bar, it’s a place where people know your name, and if they don’t, one is assigned to you: There’s the Poet, the Cheerleader, the Jockey, the Guru, Jiminy Cricket, Popeye.

The lady with the shopping cart is Helen, the face beneath the wide brim is that of writer-director-actor Paul Mazursky. If you ask people how long they have come here, or worked here, the answers are often measured in decades, three of them for screenwriter and amateur photographer Leon Capetanos.

Los Angeles is diverse as a metropolis, says Capetanos, but it is built of neighborhoods that, largely, are not. In this tiny world of about 30 tables, however, bordered by Bob’s Coffee & Doughnuts on one side and Coffee Corner, also known as Lillian’s, on the other, an unassuming heterogenous community has taken root.

“This is what it could be like,” says Capetanos, referring to the market, the city and life in general. “L.A. is really a strange city in that we are isolated in a way. We live in different neighborhoods because of money or whatever. It’s Balkanized in that sense, but this is one of the few places where that isn’t the case.”

Since 1934, when farmers started selling their produce from the backs of trucks and a woman started selling sandwiches to the farmers from a picnic basket, Farmers Market, at the corner of 3rd Street and Fairfax Avenue, has survived. Wartime, earthquakes, riots and other forms of catastrophe -- the market has withstood them all.

Then, like a tidal wave of earth tones, came the Gap.

There was a sense of doom about four years ago, when the East Patio regulars learned of the coming of the Grove. Capetanos and the others were certain that their lives, at least between 8 and 10 a.m., would never be the same. Chain stores were coming, parking gates were being installed. They were going to pave paradise and put up a Barnes & Noble.

Capetanos began taking pictures to preserve memories of a special place, and in doing that he realized it was the people that made it special. So he started shooting black-and-white portraits of the workers, the regulars and the tourists, resulting in a body of work now on display in the upper dining deck at the market.

Among those portrayed are writer Roger Simon, actor Keith Carradine, visitors from Wisconsin here to see tapings of “The Price Is Right.” There’s Nancy, the graphic designer, and her husband, who looks like George Bernard Shaw; the shoemaker; the guy who delivers bread; the newsstand guy, who resisted having his picture taken for weeks. And, there, peering at the camera over his reading glasses, is Mario Roccuzzo.

Roccuzzo’s face is a familiar one. A character actor, he has appeared on almost 300 television shows and a dozen feature films. He has been coming to the market since 1983, when Schwab’s Drug was torn down.

Roccuzzo would eat three meals a day at Schwab’s, where he would meet friends, including screenwriter Jo Heims, who wrote “Play Misty for Me,” and talk shop. Like Schwab’s, many of his friends are gone now. Roccuzzo comes to the market every morning for coffee (cream and sugar), Kent 100s (“the No. 1 choice of cardiologists all over the world”) and the crossword puzzle.

“I live in the eye of a needle,” he says. “It’s a small world I live in. I come here in the morning, go home and read, do some writing, hope my agent calls, and I cook dinner for myself every night. I have two scotches, and I’m in bed by 9:30 or 10.”

If work or anything else gets in the way of his Farmers Market routine, he stops by later in the day. “This place reaffirms my life,” he says.

From time to time, he and the other regulars notice someone missing, perhaps forever. The day after Capetanos photographed a regular named Joe, with his bushy brows and unruly hair, Joe died, and Capetanos’ project took on a sense of urgency. Death and the Gap wait for no one.

Capetanos is a member of what has become known as the Mazursky Table.

Most mornings there are seven or eight people gathered, including author David Freeman and artist Charlie Bragg.

Every once in a while, Capetanos says, when the tablemates become bored with each other, they seek “new meat,” someone to inject new points of view and humor.

“There’s the constant opportunity to change your view of things by meeting a new friend, have a new encounter,” Capetanos says. “That’s pretty exciting.”

It was at their table that Capetanos and Mazursky started talking about a project involving Russian immigrants, like those who passed by from time to time at the market. It led to “Moscow on the Hudson,” which they co-wrote and Mazursky directed, starring Robin Williams. Other Capetanos/Mazursky collaborations include “Tempest,” “Down and Out in Beverly Hills” and “Moon Over Parador.”

“A lot of the projects we spawned, we talked about here,” he says. “I met my wife here, and we’ve been married 12 years and have two kids. This place has played an important role in our lives.”

When he started photographing the people of Farmers Market, it was as if everyone understood his purpose, Capetanos says. Like the counter workers who know how you take your coffee, whether you prefer cinnamon rolls or coffee cake, there was an unspoken understanding about the significance of the market in their lives.

“They all have this sort of positive attitude about the place. You can see it in the photographs,” he says. “There’s a sense of humanity that comes through.”

Capetanos did not pose them, tell them to smile or frown or cross their arms. He shot only three or four frames of most of them.

As it turned out, the market survived the Grove and the parking gates.

There have been changes, but much remains the same: the awnings, chairs and tables, the green shopping carts made right on the grounds. The sounds and smells. The faces.

Since moving back to his native North Carolina in August, Capetanos says he misses two things in particular about Los Angeles: the weather and Farmers Market.

He comes back about once a month and always stops by to check in with the gang, to hear the same stories and laugh at the same jokes.

Market officials say his photos, more than 70 of them, will hang “indefinitely,” an appropriate word to use about such a timeless place where inhabitants view change with suspicion.

Farmers Market is many places to many people, but ultimately, Capetanos says, it’s a place where you can “get a cup of coffee, sit down and stay forever.” Or, at least, indefinitely.

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‘Portraits of Farmers Market’

Photos by Leon Capetanos

Where: Farmers Market, 6333 W. 3rd St., L.A. On the dining deck, accessed by the stairs at Gate 1, or stairs across from Country Bakery.

When: Open Monday to Friday, 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.; Saturdays, 9 a.m. to 8 p.m.; Sundays, 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.

Ends: Runs indefinitely

Price: Free

Info: (323) 933-9211