A group of Mission business owners and artists are soft-launching “Second Saturdays” this weekend, a campaign they say will bring foot traffic to revitalize the Mission Street corridor.
The first event, Caminarte, is an art walk and a play on the Spanish words caminar (to walk) and arte (art), members of the new collective Mission Vibrant said. It kicks off at 4:30 p.m. on Saturday, May 11, at the Drawing Room Annex at 599 Valencia St.
“We started noticing all the other neighborhoods have art walks [and the] Mission does not,” said Ana Valle, an organizer and the owner of Abanico Coffee Roasters. “We’re hoping to get more artists involved, and also collaborate with businesses that are not conventional art galleries.”
Valle, who will host an exhibit within her cafe on Mission Street near 17th Street, said that she and other business owners in the neighborhood had been commiserating over their similar struggles. Eventually, she said, they realized they needed a strategy to make Mission Street more inviting.
“Most businesses after the pandemic have had to just really think outside the box,” said Valle, who has been operating her cafe since 2021. “Before, people just came to you. Now, you need people to come to you — and you have to get them in here somehow. ”
Getting people comfortable walking around more seemed the perfect way to start.
Venezuelan artist Daniel Alvarado-Arias, who will host Saturday’s art walk, said that walking is essential to truly participate in one’s community. Though he doesn’t live here, his roots in the Mission run deep: He teaches at the Aventuras after-school program and arts nonprofit Ruth’s Table, and performs and hosts art sessions at businesses like Arepas restaurant and Abanico.
“You create identity walking in our streets,” Alvarado-Arias said. “If you want to feel like that’s your community, you have to walk your community and create history and connect with people.”
The stops along the walk will not only show off the neighborhood’s diversity, Alvarado-Arias said, but will also help to break down any potential perceptions around lack of safety. A similar concept drew thousands to Downtown First Thursdays last week, while Oakland’s First Friday event has brought out thousands of people every month since 2013.
Attendees can participate in Alvarado-Arias’s guided tour of seven “unconventional spaces” around the neighborhood, or choose the self-guided option, routing themselves among any of the 29 locations organizers have mapped out.
Valle and her partners call Second Saturdays a campaign, with Caminarte as only its first event. In coming months, the art walk will remain a part of Second Saturdays, but more ideas are in the pipeline, including food tours, music, and dance.
Valle said she got involved because Mission Street deserves more.
“Mission Street doesn’t get [as] much attention as other business corridors,” Valle said, comparing it to Valencia Street and North Beach. “There’s a need for something to happen on this corridor so that more businesses do open, so that businesses can stay open.”
The group of merchants — which also includes Naz Khorram of Arcana wine bar, Marcelle Gonzales Yang of Piglet & Co. restaurant, Neal Hilo of Method Made gallery, and Nereyda and Elsa Valdez of El Salvador Restaurant — held its first meeting early this year. One member threw out the idea of hosting events and art shows and, soon enough, a loose idea for Caminarte was born.
And, while the focus is on Mission Street, Alvarado-Arias emphasized that all are welcome, and that he does not want competition or exclusion among businesses or between communities. Instead, he wants to highlight the cultural diversity of the neighborhood and help build on its identity.
“We don’t want Latino people excluding people because [they’re] not Latino … we don’t want people fighting between Mission Street and Valencia Street, what is that?” Alvarado-Arias said. “No, we are together.”
For more information about the event, or to RSVP to the guided tour, click here.
“We started noticing all the other neighborhoods have art walks [and the] Mission does not,”
The Mission has Paseo Artistico, led by Acccion Latina, which brings together artists, businesses, and community organizations up and down 24th St. And the long-running Mission Arts Performance Project which rotates from peoples garages, community gardens, businesses and orgs. They have been traditionally centered around the 24th Street Cultural District. Sounds like the northern side of the Mission needs some love too.
Eleni,
“thinking outside the box”
How about a Legalized Sex Trade such as they have in Amsterdam and all of Germany?
My chosen candidate, Roberto Hernandez agrees with me that it would give us a Permanent economic boost to Mission Street.
I didn’t ask Trevor Chandler last night cause I forgot and it was first time we’d met and I’ll get around to that and pushing my preeminent Talking Point of ‘Elect our Police Chief’.
There, got that in.
But, I’m very serious about a Legalized Sex Trade here offering a Permanent new Income Source for the City.
Someone said that one popular Prostitute is worth a planefull of Japanese Tourists a year and these people have to eat and pay for transportation and stay somewhere.
Those are injections into all of our Hospitality Sectors.
What do your readers think ?
h.
The Mission needs more quality events and businesses if it is ever going to recover.
We cannot keep leaning into this same Latino schtick. Spray painting mediocre murals on every available wall, and constantly going on about diversity and affordable housing. It’s not working.
Great idea and if you want others to feel comfortable walking Mission Street, organize and do something about the criminally negligent and woefully inept mayor, district supervisor, police chief, and director of public works. Mission Street is disgusting and obviously unsafe in it’s current state and they are responsible yet we all just seem to accept it. I don’t pretend to have the answers but we need to all come together like these fine people of the community are doing. Together we are strong.
Jack,
In my opinion my chosen D-9 first Ranked Choice Candidate, Roberto Hernandez is on the right track when he says to bring back a Volunteer Senior Escort Service.
After the Coordinated SFPD Attack on Mission Youth at the ‘Hill Bomb’ (reminded me of their attacks on Gay Bars and other gathering spaces) …
The cops cannot be trusted to be on your side here.
In fact, they can be counted on to sit in their bunkers and plan Incursions into everything beyond the Precinct Station walls which they consider to be Hostile Territory.
With the coming ‘Moderate’ Board of Supes and a Budget Crunch, services to D-9 are likely to be cut and it is encumbent upon us to Plan to do w/out Downtown as we have before.
Anyone remember the ‘Jitney’ buses with their curtains and Latin music and ‘Jesus on the dashboard’ ?
Manny’s ‘Disco Sundays’ trash pick up regularly draws up to 100 people.
Hernandez’s idea of what is effectively Providing our own Security should be expanded to bring back the old Volunteer ‘Red Berets’ or whatever they were called who patrolled Bart Stops and Shopping Areas.
If Roberto can manage something as large as Carnaval as a private citizen, as Supervisor he can certainly step it up to incubating and prototyping Permanent Security and Trash Volunteers Forces to fill the gap left by delinquent or openly hostile City Agencies.
h.
Sounds like a nice alternative to Calle 24-sponsored events.