Not Everything Is Big

A few weeks back I saw a posting about a neighborhood small vendors festival, so I figured I’d walk down and check it out.

The neighborhood is what real estate agents call “transitioning” and it’s a mixed bag. There’s a place that was the focus of a long running Food Network show, and there’s also an assortment of places like this parking lot for an auto repair shop.

But there is also this building which has a big indoor food court with niche food vendors and craft beer. It was once a giant auto body shop.

The exterior is bike-friendly, because of course a bunch of people would rather bike than drive.

And it’s also been designed to encourage people to sit outside and hang out, on the reasonable theory that making a place people-friendly makes it more popular, not less.

The neighborhood’s name starts with an R and at some point a 20 foot tall R was erected to drive home that point.

The festival itself wasn’t much to write home about, with just a fairly small number of tents, but to be fair this was the first year.

A local artist was selling paintings on a corner.

But hey, any event is a good excuse for a nice walk.

The neighborhood is seeing some investment. This apartment building is new, but it was designed to look like it might have been around 80 years ago.

And you can see what a local creative person has done. They painted blue paths on the sidewalks and streets to show the location of an old city stream, which is now encased in concrete and buried out of sight. Somewhere down below the water still flows, and now it is remembered.