Hawthorne Street Fair history

By Roger Jones

The first “Street Fair” on Hawthorne was in 1983 when a guitarist, a Tarot Card reader and a couple of non-profit organizations kicked off this now iconic event in the ARCO gas station parking lot, currently Cory Brunish’s “Little Village” now leased to Cha! Cha! Cha! and Kids at Heart, and the Postal Annex.

By 1992, the event had morphed into sidewalk sales with 40 or so vendors in the next block, the building at the time was occupied by Health Care offices and the management was kind enough to let us use their electricity for one of the stages.

In the mid 90’s, in an attempt to share the fun of the Fair, the acoustic stage was located at SE 23rd at Grand Central Baking with vendors at three parking lots along the way up the Boulevard. Unfortunately, not enough people were walking or biking to make those locations successful.

For a few years the International Stage at Portland Impact on SE 47th was very popular.

During these early years, SE 34th was an Arby’s before the

Hawthorne Street Fair history

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