One of the great pleasures of living near downtown San Antonio is being just a short trip away from unique places like Main Plaza. On Tuesday, my daughter and I went to check out the weekly farmers’ market.
We parked in a surface lot near Main and Houston ($6 for 3 hours; the machine takes credit cards; put the receipt on your dash). We walked past waving sunflowers in the empty lot where the Wolfson building used to be. We crossed Commerce street. In the plaza, a band was playing jazz-pop. We bought a cucumber and some herb plants at the farmers’ market. We took in the views of the San Fernando Cathedral and the Bexar County Courthouse. The fountains were not running (drought?) but we sat on a teak bench and my daughter rolled little pieces of crushed granite between her fingers.
The renovation of Main Plaza was controversial. (For example, “Main Plaza mess making locals, not tourists, suffer”, Benjamin Olivo, The Downtown Blog at mysanantonio.com, March 3, 2009.) But it seems to have caught on — see the positive reviews on Yelp. In the end, former mayor Phil Hardberger’s vision of a walkable plaza has also created a family-friendly space.
