The Carytown Watermelon Festival is in its 42nd year and features vendors, food, drinks, music, rides, and big crowds. What the Watermelon Festival is now famous for is what it doesn’t have: cars on Cary Street. This event is similar to the Easter Parade, where the pedestrians are the parade, or the Monument Ave 10k, which makes the Fan and Museum District friendly to fast-moving pedestrians.
Certainly, roads like Ellwood and Idlewood are backed up, parking is a nightmare, and God help you if you plan on moving that weekend, but there are no cars in Carytown.
The streets are lined with vendors, and it’s difficult to even walk around with Richmonders dressed in their fruitiest attire.
The music acts aren’t going to draw people from farther than Central Virginia, but I could see that people really loved Grandma’s Cooking—a band of Gen Z pop-punk enthusiasts without much concern for their search engine optimization.
The Robert Kennedy Jr. presidential campaign was out, but you can safely ignore them. This year’s festival also had some local politicians in attendance. State Senator Ghazala Hashmi, who is currently running for Lieutenant Governor, made an appearance. Read our interview here.
Andrew “Gumby” Breton greeted passersby and encouraged support for his campaign to represent Carytown in City Council. “The people of Richmond crave walkable pedestrian spaces,” Breton said from a shady spot.
Sneaking behind Breton was Sarah Pentecost, wearing a provocative shirt that read, “CARS RUIN CARYTOWN.” “We are wearing them to support Carytown being car-free, just like it is today,” Pentecost said. “It would open it up to the people, just like Charlottesville’s mall and Virginia Beach’s boardwalk.”
The argument about making Carytown car-free is a controversial subject. Last year, there was debate on turning Carytown into something closed to traffic. Sometimes, such an incendiary position broadens the discussion on what is possible. Read more here.
Another person expressing his desire to make the city more pedestrian-friendly was local artist, educator and author John Freyer. He came out with a mat of artificial grass that took up the size of a parking space. It arrived with a single bike that included four lawn chairs, a grill, and a kiddie pool filled with watermelon-flavored seltzers.
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