Third Friday June in pictures and text

I may not be first to post, but I’ll bet I have the most to add to the conversation. The local bloggers were crawling all over this one.

There are those who knock the event for low participation, but still vendors come to the Plaza or open along Main Street to peddle their wares at Third Friday. I’m including the next picture to make a point about one particular vendor and downtown in general.

I have no idea why this building is “coming soon,” when the property records for 224 West Main show the units are sold. (The website doesn’t work either.) So there are a few people living downtown.

Yet there were a pair of realtors at Third Friday trying to sell the 29 remaining units at River Place (of 42 built) for a fire-sale price. Since I was looking at property records anyway, I noticed units there have sold for anywhere between $236,000 and $650,000 (for a larger penthouse unit.) The most recent sale was the $236,000 unit last fall.

I’m not trying to disparage the ladies doing their job or the people who bought high. But in order to bring people to the downtown area to live, perhaps the sights should have been set lower. Does a young professional – the type who would tend to not mind living downtown – really need a 1,600 square foot condo like River Place? Perhaps the reason these units on West Main sold was their size and affordability. (It appeared many in the Brickshire were sold after being bank-owned.)

As for the crowd down there, you can judge for yourself. I took these shots between 7 and 7:30 around the Plaza. Note the weather was looking more threatening as time went on.

Again, I guess anyone who comes downtown on a sultry night either wants a bargain or just to participate in a fun community event in an All-American City. When did they put these banners up?

I think it’s a little ironic that Delmar Pizza is a sign sponsor, but I suppose they want to advertise too.

And the artists were there, inside.

They were selling beer there, but you couldn’t take it outside. What good would that be? Sometimes I think the nanny state goes a little too far with alcohol-related regulations – why not allow open containers in this case since the Plaza is closed to traffic?

Maybe it was better in the end, though, since the rain hit about 8:30. I’m sure the passing shower didn’t do wonders for the impromptu Flavors Memorial put up for Third Friday.

People were leaving impassioned messages, too.

It makes you wonder why the business closed if so many were interested in it. Then again, I don’t know what the margin on beer is as opposed to the margin on pizza. I thought their pizza was pretty good on the three or four occasions I went to Flavors and I can vouch that at least The Permilla Project drew a crowd there.

But now it’s just another restaurant casualty in Salisbury like Checkers, English’s, and many others through the years which are missed to a varying extent.

Of course, the problem whereas Third Friday is concerned is that Flavors served as an anchor and draw at the eastern end of the festivities. Now they don’t have much to draw people down that way, and it creates a scenario where businesses along East Main may not have as much incentive to participate. Perhaps Third Friday needs to retrench and just concentrate on participation by Plaza businesses unless someone else steps up to create an attraction in the area where Flavors was.

Yet as long as someone is interested in taking a little time and trying to make a little money I suppose Third Friday will survive a little longer.

You may have noticed I didn’t talk about the musical aspect of 3F – well, what do you think my Weekend of Local Rock series is for? Look for that in the near future.