I’m in favor of any fall arts event in metro Phoenix that doesn’t ask people to pay for the privilege of being outside and mildly civilized. Free is the right price, especially here, where the weather finally stops acting like a personal insult and everyone remembers they live near a city with actual culture.
The clearest example is First Fridays in downtown Phoenix. The city council unanimously approved the Downtown Arts Vending on Private Property Pilot Program, which lets businesses within the art walk’s original downtown footprint apply for permits to sell locally produced arts-focused items and food on private property until 10 p.m. on the first Friday of each month. That matters because the vendor market had been suspended in April on a closed section of Roosevelt Street amid rising public safety concerns, and the scaled-back version that continued in the Roosevelt Row and Grand Avenue arts districts saw attendance fall significantly while local businesses suffered. In other words, the old arrangement broke, and pretending otherwise would be the kind of civic optimism that usually ends with a press release.
The city’s timing is also practical, which is rare enough to note. A permit workshop is set for Monday, Sept. 14, at 2:30 p.m., and permit applications open Wednesday, Sept. 16. The new program will be in effect for the next art walk on Oct. 2. That gives the event a chance to feel like itself again instead of a diminished version of itself with better intentions.
Downtown Phoenix Inc. president and CEO Devney Majerle said decades of First Fridays have turned Roosevelt Row into a destination, and Councilmember Anna Hernandez said the pilot returns the event to its roots of art and supports the businesses on Roosevelt. Both are right, which is refreshing. First Fridays works when it feels like a place where artists, property owners and small businesses can all benefit without the whole thing getting strangled by logistics.
That’s why I’d put free fall arts events near the top of the local list. They give people a reason to show up, spend time downtown and remember that a city is supposed to have a pulse. If First Fridays can keep that pulse going, good. Phoenix has enough dead air already.
— Bill Farr
