The new Yerba Buena Art and Makers Market kicked off Sunday at the Yerba Buena Gardens in San Francisco, giving space to dancers, musicians, and all kinds of creators to perform or sell their goods.
Going forward, it will be held on the first Sunday of each month at the same location.
“Events like this are very important, because it really allows people to align with the community,” said DeAndre Moore, a designer with a natural body care line.
The executive director of the non-profit Yerba Buena Community Benefit District, which helped organize the event, attributed some of the reason for it to the ways San Francisco’s downtown has changed since the start of the Pandemic.
“As we all know, downtown changed throughout the last few years. And the Pandemic has impacted everyone in different ways, and we wanted to create an event that is on-going, repetitive, and really creates the opportunity for energy in the downtown core,” said Executive Director Scott Rowtiz
San Francisco’s downtown has struggled with workers and companies changing how and where they work, meaning office vacancies and a drop in traffic. So the event is one small piece in an effort to bring people back downtown and invest in a different vision for the area.
“All of this, collectively, is really meant to create a future for our downtown that is much more mixed use 24/7, as opposed to only about work,” said Kate Sofis, the executive director of the Office of Economic and Workforce Development.
People who stopped by said they were looking forward to upcoming markets.
Anastasia Podvysogska, a resident who stopped by the event, told NBC Bay Area: “I think it helps city - and people like me, I imagine, [be] more social.”
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