First Tuesday

The first "First Tuesday Downtown" on July 2 did just what it was designed to do. Couples, friends and families roamed around downtown from five o'clock until dark, collecting coupons, checking out retail stores, and soaking up various entertainments.

I went wandering down Congress Avenue with my wife and her teenaged sister, who was in town from Arkansas. We saw some paintings at the Driskill Hotel and watched Peter the Adequate do a trick involving a lit cigarette and a woman's skirt. Boyd Vance was hosting a revue of songs from Purlie, which he was directing at the State Theatre. And while spouse and sister checked out The Public Domain, I talked with Hazel Savad, whose now-defunct Gallery 807 was showing some impressive local artists.

Shops were running specials and honoring coupons distributed with the night's official program. The retailers, anyway, were thrilled, like Cheryl Heine at Hit or Miss who said their "traffic has increased by 100 percent" -- mainly because the store would normally be closed. "This is what I consider a normal downtown," Heine said, pointing to the busy hands flipping through a sidewalk rack, "not an Austin downtown."

Anne Gillian, who directs the event for the Downtown Austin Alliance, was nervous at the second event in August. Extreme heat made for a spotty attendance, though the crowd built as the sun receded. I told her I had reservations about the place of the arts in all this, that clowns on stilts and a rockabilly band at Frost Plaza were fine, but they didn't exactly exhaust the possibilities of an event like this. Gillian allows the room for improvement and says she's recruiting more visual and performance artists. Future happenings may include the downtown infrastructure itself, with a film projected against the side of a building, and a do-it-yourself mural space for interactively-minded patrons.

"First Tuesday" is a young event, with some growing to do. I'm hoping for more heart and less hokum. If the night is supposed to show what the central city has going on, it will need to reach further than tap dancing and nature prints. But the impulse is just what a growing city ought to have. Gillian says, "I talk to some people who say, `We want a 24-hour city,' and then there are others who say, `Let's not lose what's great about Austin.'" Gillian replies, "I think Austin will always be Austin."

The next "First Tuesday" happens September 3, from 5-9pm. It's worth a try. -- B.H.R.