“Feast when you can,
and dream when there’s nothing to feast on.”
— John Darnielle
Given the harsh and unforgiving environment, Phoenicians end up doing a lot of dreaming. While things are not as rough as they once were, the prospects of seeing a large-scale dream come to life are rare.
April 13, 2013, will be remembered for many reasons — but mainly because it was the day a half-mile-long dream came to life.
Feast on the Street took over, transforming First Street from Taylor Street to Hance Park into a pedestrian mall — and dining table — ready for the festivities of the day.
This event was arguably one of the most important to happen in Phoenix, even the entire Valley of the Sun, in a very long time. However, this importance had little to do with the physical reality of the feast.
Physically and mentally, I found the grandness of the event overwhelming.
The crowds at the food truck cluster, while superb from a local business perspective, were hard to navigate and drew attention away from many of the activities in the southern half of the event.
This crowding also led to problems with filling the table. Our grand symbol lacked energy around seating time, as the majority of the people were surrounding the already crowded food court.
Food trucks have a wonderful magnetic effect. (This effect speaks to the larger role food plays in developing a sense of community and place.)
Unfortunately, this magnetism must be dispersed widely across an event to establish a balance of people-drawing power and to allow the entirety of an event space to live up to its full potential — activating as much of the event as possible.
After unsuccessfully attempting to find food at one of the few trucks that had not sold out, I made a quick crepe run over to Jobot. On the walk back, the beauty of the feast struck me from every direction.
As the crowd dispersed, hundreds of people moved into every available space. And right before my eyes, downtown came alive.
The plaza of the finally realized Canvas project was full of people, as were Songbird and the Ro2 Lot. Carly’s was overflowing, and many more people were simply walking the streets and enjoying a night on the town.
As I stepped back into the feast to begin my volunteer shift, I had an equally striking revelation. Today was the first time that we as a community saw the true power of a massive and cohesive partnership between the people of downtown and ASU.
This event could not have happened without joining forces, and it serves as just one example of how combining the two entities helps to rejuvenate downtown.
Having students directly involved in the feast — from initial planning to final teardown — created a perfect storm of students using their coursework and personal skills to help create real world change. The feast provided an outlet where these young professionals could truly invest themselves.
In the end though, it was the simplicity that really made me love Feast on the Street. The truest triumph was the simple magic of seeing the looks on attendees’ faces as The Haymarket Squares went around serenading tables after their set.
After the remainder of the crowd wandered out, stomachs full and eyes smiling, the laborious effort that is teardown commenced.
Sometime after folding up the 30th or 40th table, it struck me that this massive table we had put together was made of hundreds of smaller tables, much the same way a community is made up of individuals, families, businesses and all other manner of humanity.
Perhaps, the moral of this story is simply that no matter what walk of life one is from or role they wish to play, there is always room at the table.
Gabriel Radley is a criminology and criminal justice sophomore at the College of Public Programs, vice president of Barrett Leadership and Service Team Downtown, founding member of the Student Residential College Advisory Board and an active member of ASU Downtown Alive!
