2017 NEWaukee Night Market

NEWaukee Night Market. Photo by Jeramey Jannene.

Early evening rain was no match for Milwaukeeans’ desire to spend their summer outside. The first installment of the fourth annual NEWaukee Night Market was held on W. Wisconsin Ave. last night, turning the street over from cars and trucks to people from N. 2nd St. to N. 4th St.

Social architecture firm NEWaukee bills the event as “a collision of all Milwaukee has to offer.” And while that’s an apt one-sentence description, the street festival is best explained for the uninitiated as a diverse mixing of Milwaukeeans interacting around nearly 100 art, craft and food vendors. Thrown on top of that is a number of live performances that take place in the center of the event at the intersection N. 3rd St. and W. Wisconsin Ave. There is a beer garden on N. 3rd St., free smores from engineering firm GRAEF and giant, free games of chess and checkers to play. Vendors come in all shapes and sizes, ranging from big (like Boston Store, whose corporate headquarters border the event) to small (like Our Daily Salt, a Silver City-based maker of hand-crafted wood kitchen products).

The event draws thousands from across the region that are treated to a downtown free of the noise and odors of automobile congestion.

The night market will return three more times this year. Running from 5:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. during each installment, the event will run again on July 12th, August 16th and September 13th.

Photos

123►