Orillia’s Pedestrian Mall Part 3
By John Swartz
The third installment of the Friday night pedestrian mall on Mississaga Street and the Arts District block of Peter Street looked as intended – lots of people, not thousands – enjoying being out of the house, away from the stove, and meeting friends.
Of course in with emergency measures restaurant and businesses are limited to how many people can be inside their establishments and many are taking advantage of the City of Orillia allowing spillover onto the street. It also gave people an opportunity to see friends in the open air and in less confined circumstances.
Makers Market was open. Though they didn’t have a lot of their stock on the street, Beth Shaw said they will be putting more out in coming weeks when they are able to have staff to be out there as well.
Restaurants were able to take over space on the street greater than the are immediately in front of their businesses where adjacent stores either weren’t open, or weren’t using the street.
Creative Nomad Studios organized a live art project called Metamorphosis, with 8 artists set up in front of the studio creating paintings. Look at the photo galleries below to see what they were working on and other scenes.
A few classic car owners were invited to show off their shiny rides on the block of Mississaga between Peter and West Streets.
What was not evident in previous weeks was music, at least in the abundance there was Friday night. The idea was to have musicians playing at locations near restaurants in the same manner as happens during sidewalk sales, so that diners could enjoy regardless of whether they were at one restaurant or another. The City provided canopies with clear plastic sides for musicians to keep raging fans at bay.
Derek Lehmann had a video light show project he was trial running. It projects images onto geometric objects rather than large blank spaces. He wasn’t able to run it until the sun went down, but the video looks pretty impressive.
Starting next week the pedestrian mall will operate Friday and Saturday nights each weekend of August. The City of Orillia is accepting proposals and applications for entertainment. For more info see the Call to Artists drop down on this page, or call Jacqueline Surette at 705-325-4530.
(Photos by Swartz – SUNonline/Orillia) Main: The Common Stove’s outdoor patio on the pedestrian mall.
