I'm a New York resident moving to DC at the end of August.

In New York all the street fairs are really annoying. The mix of vendors is pretty constant from fair to fair, which means that every week the same group of sock vendors, funnel cake makers and meat-on-a-stick merchants shuttle around to shut off a new main traffic artery. There's never much in the way of actually interesting commerce going on, and although it's pleasant to be able to walk down the center of 8th Avenue or 14th Street when they're blocked to traffic, the transitory nature of these fairs means that the rest of the city's traffic pattern gets all unpredictably screwed up. I'm all for pedestrian life but I think that street fairs are a really bad way to try to get it. And while the fairs may look pleasant to tourists, for residents they offer little in terms of atmosphere or services.

by Dave on Jul 28, 2008 9:38 am  

A few street fairs are nice, but you can have too much of a good thing.

A far more useful addition to the urban fabric would be the deregulation and allowance of far more and far more varied street vendors of any kind. I'd love to be able to get a wider variety of street food when walking around.

by Alex B. on Jul 28, 2008 9:51 am  

I'd personally be happy if we didn't have self-important ANCs going around trying to shut down whatever street life already exists.

by Adam on Jul 28, 2008 10:11 am  

I'm with Alex B.

Richmond allows any licensed restaurant to sell from streetcarts, resulting in a a wonderful variety of excellent food available on the city streets there.

by dcseain on Jul 28, 2008 11:23 am  

Seems to me that up until about 10-15 years ago there were a lot more and different street fairs in DC and then a decision was made to consolidate them all down to PA Ave where they quickly became very homogenized. I would definitely support moving them back to the neighborhoods where they belong.

by Andy on Jul 28, 2008 11:51 am  

1. It's not just the signature requirements, but the cost of doing one, especially in terms of all the licensing and police costs imposed by DC Govt. (Similar costs are usually waived such as in Takoma Park).

2. Re Alex B.'s point: you can ease the regulatory environment all you want (and this is necessary) but most areas in DC lack the population movement/density necessary to support successful vending. If we had that, vendors would deal, regardless of the regulatory burden. But there just isn't enough people density to make vending work except in very particular places and at certain times of the year.

by Richard Layman on Jul 28, 2008 1:52 pm  

I'm from Chicago and I miss the street fairs there, which keep their neighborhood feel by usually being tied to the street's businesses, especially restaurants. Many are copycats of the ur-Chicago street fair, Taste of Chicago, so they almost conceive of and organize themselves (Taste of Lincoln Ave, Taste of Ravenswood, etc.).

Yeah, they can be repetitive (although not as bad as NYC), and an advantage of rarer festivals means that events like Adams-Morgan day feel more special. Maybe other neighborhoods should have them--similar to Dog Days, but the streets don't close down for that, right?

One thing I've always wondered is why Crafty Bastards crams itself into that tiny space in Marie Reed instead of making itself a true street fair. It'd be SO much easier to navigate, and you could have food vendors.

by techne on Jul 28, 2008 2:38 pm  

I lived in Chicago for 6 years, and one of the reasons I stayed so long was the street fairs, which are often like condensed Eastern Markets, with artisans and local restaurants/farmers making up most of the vendors. And occasionally there is a band at either end of the street, and any given weekend, you can find one in one neighborhood or another -- really showcasing which each individual neighborhood has to offer. The problem is the vendors who sell beer because dumb Trixies drink too much and yell at you when you bump their little dogs in their purses while you're just trying to make your way to the grocery store. Anyway, I think the Chicago street fairs are part of Daley's initiative to make the city more European, so I doubt there are too many regulations, but I don't know how vendor space is allocated and how streets are chosen.

I kind of like the New York street fairs because they tend to have awesome cannoli, otherwise they are very generic and bland. So in DC, I wouldn't want the same street fair moving from one street one weekend to another street another weekend. I'd also like to keep alcohol at a minimum just because it seems to induce excessive rudeness. Getting signatures of 90% of the businesses and residents is pretty high, because how do you get signatures from vacant property or property that is supposedly inhabited, but is actually vacant?

by Mary on Jul 28, 2008 3:08 pm