As Dust of New Rules Settles, Art Walk Prepares for Another Month of Crowds
Ed Fuentes
Attendees crowd around an art installation during the July 2010 Art Walk.
DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES — Less than 24 hours before the August edition of the Downtown Art Walk, all the dust has yet to settle from the new rules put in place this week by the city's task force on public safety. Still, Art Walk director Joe Moller is confident that Thursday's event will turn out to be a good one.
"Overall, curiosity is going to get the best of people," he said on Wednesday night. "Because of the recent publicity, the media coverage, and overall curiosity, the crowd is going to show up."
What that crowd will find is an Art Walk where food trucks and vendors are banned from the blocks bounded by Spring, Main, 3rd and 7th, and one where city personnel are out in force to make sure that the event complies with the law.
The new rules, first finalized on Tuesday and the topic of intense debate here on blogdowntown and elsewhere, are the city's response to the tragic crash that took place during the July event, killing a two-month-old infant.
Many have struggled to see the connection between a car that struck a parking meter and food trucks operating in private parking lots.
A press release put out by the offices of Councilmembers Jose Huizar and Jan Perry on Wednesday emphasized the need to thin out "areas identified to be overly congested by art walk activities."
They're doing that be cracking down on parking lot events that have long operated without the required city "change of use" permits.
Moller believes that will be a good thing for the Art Walk over the long term.
"I'm optimistic this process will shake loose the organizations and individuals who have benefited from Art Walk without contributing," he said.
The crackdown on sidewalk vending should also lead to the realization that there is plenty of space for the event's 30,000 attendees, Moller believes.
"When the regulatory agencies who are responding to unauthorized uses of the sidewalk slim those safety hazards and the sidewalks are returned, people will see that the Downtown urban fabric is perfect capable of supporting our crowd size."
"[Art Walk attendees] don't walk in the street voluntarily," he said. "They do so because there's someone with a six-foot card table set up in front of a doorway and blocking the way."
Food trucks will remain a big part of the event, but will just be forced to do so from the periphery. Trucks are expected to line up on Broadway, in a parking lot at 710 S. Spring, and north of 3rd on Main Street.
The vendor lots will be outside the core as well, though it doesn't seem that they all got the same message. ARTsquare, which in July took place at 434 S. Spring, now says it will be located at 340 S. Spring, still inside the boundaries where the city says no permits for vending will be issued.
Moller said that location is "pending permitting-agency approval." While the ARTsquare event is not run by the Art Walk, Moller said that the two have an "arms-length relationship."
Once the dust settles, Moller hopes the outcome is a "sustainable and regulated environment" for Art Walk.
"These are growing pains," he noted. "Downtown for a number of years was an unregulated environment."
"In light of having everyone's focus and attention for a brief period, we want to use this window as effectively as we can."
Robert A on August 11, 2011, at 06:10AM – #1
Moving the food trucks to Broadway is a great move. Frankly, I would love to see Art Walk expanded throughout Downtown. Broadway needs people at night. Broadway needs restaurants and life. Art Walk has been amazing for Spring Street. I say spread the wealth. I do think sidewalks that are impassable are not safe. Broadway is one block west...what is the big deal? Plus, let's widen the sidewalks in the long term.
Let's see more events, especially on the weekends. I would love to see the Historic Core become a magnet for the music scene like the Sunset Strip in the sixties. One thing we have is a good public transportation system Downtown...and it will get better with the Expo Line and the Streetcar.
People need to chill. This Artwalk experiment requires some adjustments. If it doesn't work it is easily changed. Meanwhile, support those business ventures Downtown like Crack Gallery, Spring St Bar, Raw Materials Art Supply, Cliftons, Pattern Bar, The Last Bookstore, Flea, Urban Noodle, Bolt, Ground Floor Cafe and Gallery, Two Bits, Buzz...etc.
Alec Mitchell on August 11, 2011, at 08:27AM – #2
Pedestrians are spilling out into the sidewalk even where there are no card tables or buskers. The event has outgrown the sidewalks and the pedestrian space needs to be expanded. Moving the food trucks is a reasonable gesture in that direction, but it is negated by the fact that the pedestrian spaces formerly created by the food truck and vendor lots will be turned back over to parking cars, increasing the hazards they create in the center of a pedestrian event.
Dixon on August 11, 2011, at 10:18AM – #3
Yes, but what about the art?
Blogdowntown used to have a great Art Walk preview that directed people to interesting art events and exhibits. Where did it go? Alas, what should be the main focus is now lost in the crowds and drama.
FLEA on August 11, 2011, at 10:21AM – #4
20% of all sales today from FLEA during Art Walk will be donated to the family whose baby was tragically killed at last months art walk. While no amount of money could ever replace such a loss it might help with some of the hospital and funeral costs.
Alec Mitchell on August 11, 2011, at 02:01PM – #5
@Cota the Art Walk website does a decent job of previewing the galleries (http://www.downtownartwalk.com/). At least it's a lot better than it used to be.
Mblu on August 11, 2011, at 02:47PM – #6
Robert A - Do you live Downtown?? As a resident, I speak for many of us when I say WE DON'T WANT DOWNTOWN TO TURN INTO SUNSET STRIP. If you don't live here, of course you want to see that because you have no idea of what makes Downtown unique. Your vision would kill that uniqueness in a heartbeat. If you live here then you appreciate the quiet communal vibe that night time brings. Artwalk is the worse night of the month for us. It's not what the Downtown living experience is about.
QUIT TRYING TO COMMERCIALIZE DOWNTOWN! Art walk is not about art and it should end..period. It's an idiot walk! There will always be gallery row, people will always come here to see art and have a cultural experience.We don't need an artwalk to make that happen. Galleries can draw there own crowd and will fair better in the end for it. Quantity DOES NOT MEAN QUALITY. You're making a circus out of Downtown and taking the charm out of it. Like every other opportunist that feeds off of unique and creative environments and people.
I hope Downtown never gets 100% cleaned up and I hope all the elements that make it gritty and sketchy stay exactly the same if only to keep the opportunist and mainstream out.
Robert A on August 11, 2011, at 03:41PM – #7
Mblu...yes, not only do I live Downtown but my Grandmother lived here as a child and worked on Spring St. in the 20s when it was a thriving place with shopping, theatres and restaurants. Yes, I would like to see Downtown restored to what we used to be. I would love to see a lot places that play music like the home of the Birds and the Doors in the 60s...not like the Strip as we see today. I would love to see all the theatres restored and bring music and entertainment like we have witnessed at the Palace and the Orpheum.
My relatives are buried at Calvery in Boyle Heights and my Great Grandmother's funeral Mass was at St. Vibiana's in 1905. So you have not a clue about my family and my experience here in Historic Los Angeles.
So it is you that needs to realize this was a beautiful and architecturally stimulating place and it is returning to the place it once was...finally!
Mblu on August 11, 2011, at 04:38PM – #8
Robert A. - Well, I'm very glad to hear this and yes, I agree with you in the sense that I would love to see it be the way it was back then or what the strip was to the Doors and The Birds. However, we live in a VERY different time my friend. I'm not sure how old you are but I was around for all that. It was a movement. Today it's about corporations and big money. The only way to keep Downtown special now is to go against that. That in itself will be a movement.
Downtown is getting so much attention because of us. The youth of today is, generally speaking, very different than the youth of yesteryear. They were passionate and stood up to wrong doings. They shook the tress of awareness in a way that brought about undeniable change for future generations.
Unfortunately in the 80s many of those beautiful voices turned to "yuppies" as the phrase was coined, and had children and so on. Today the kids are very self centered, entitled and have been bred on corporate everything. They practically had a Starbucks in their hand by age 5. It's just not natural.
So now, and I'm not sure how it happened, but it would be impossible to get back to that by going big. Perhaps it's time to go back to the ideals of commune living, of unity. Which I feel Downtown has but without having to go live in the forest cut off from everything. I'm a city person, love the lights and convenient aspect of it. We have the best of both worlds right now.
And we can even jump on the Metro and be at Hollywood and Vine and all that goes with it in minutes to experience what you're talking about. Which is needed from time to time. But do we want all that goes with that here?? I have friends who live in the Broadway Lofts right there and let me tell you, there is nothing good about it. It's a circus 24/7. No break and it brings out all the douche-bags you can imagine.
Your idealism is to be admired, and I really do appreciate it. But please realize, the landscape of today when romanticizing what was and trying to bring it back. I mean the people who now put on Artwalk are of this same mindset now and look what has happened since they took over.
I mean my goodness, corporate kiosks are starting to set up camp amongst the "art'. I mean really. It's not about art for them. They are spinning it as a cultural and artistic event but they're more interested in how the real estate market has sky rocketed since artwalk started.
Mea on August 11, 2011, at 05:15PM – #9
How is 340 Spring St. OUTSIDE the 3rd - 7th St. 'main footprint' area? It is clearly PASSED 3rd St. Sounds like another shady director for the AW. Alas the curse continues!
DowntownLosAngelesArtWalk on August 12, 2011, at 05:52PM – #10
Mea - the non-shady executive director of the Art Walk doesnt issue permits and isnt involved in any of the permit issuing agency's conversations about who is granted a permit. He does provide all benefits to the art's community he can FOR FREE to the galleries & artists, he DOES pay for Chrysalis to clean up after Art Walk & does provide security and trash cans to supplement the BID's detail. Not sure why you would comment on someone who you have never met, spoken to or heard from directly?