PHOENIX — First Friday on Roosevelt Row became one of the best art walks in the country where artists can paint and sell their art. Decades later, shootings and fistfights in the city have changed how the event operates and artists are watching to see what happens next.

Phoenix City Council approved a new pilot program where vendors must now apply for permits to sell their art, food, clothing, jewelry and more on Roosevelt Row. Businesses will operate exclusively on private property rather than on public streets, avoiding street closures entirely. The program is scheduled to be in effect on Oct. 2 and will run for one year, long enough for city officials to collect data on the change. 

While the city is evaluating whether the new program works, artists who have participated in First Friday in various years have their own perspectives on the changes and what they mean for the art community.

Wayne Rainey, photographer and co-founder of Monorchid, is one of the original curators of the art walk on Roosevelt. He built his own 14-unit affordable apartment complex, specifically for artists named “Holga’s,” in 2000 and with artists living in the area at the time. It became the reason why Roosevelt Row grew in popularity. 

His original intentions for Roosevelt Row were to form an arts district with galleries that people could visit daily and buy paintings to hang in their homes. 

“I think arts and arts related businesses are such an incredible asset to cities, and such an underutilized tool for furthering the cultural capital of a population,” Rainey said. 

Manny Burruel, painter and organizer of the Olney Gallery at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral, has curated a different art showcase every First Friday for the past 12 years. 

“I like the group of people I'm working with, and I enjoy curating the different shows each month. I'm always getting to see new art, and so it's kind of a creative outlet for me in my retirement,” Burruel said. 

His gallery remained open to the public even after multiple crowd altercations and gun violence that occurred during First Friday months ago. However, with the new program, Burruel hopes to draw a bigger crowd again and restore Roosevelt Row to what it was years ago.

“I'm hopeful that it'll be successful. And I hope it also keeps a focus on art, because we had a good reputation on Roosevelt for being one of the best art walks in the country for a long time,” Burrel said. “And I think we started to get away from that. So, hopefully, we'll start to garner that relationship and that reputation again.”

Although some say Roosevelt Row isn’t the same as it was in the past, the art district as a whole covers a bigger part in the downtown area and has encouraged other places to take matters into their own hands and host their own events.

Adrian “AWER” Garcia is the artist coordinator for Family First Friday at the Arizona Center. For two years, they’ve hosted their own festivities where artists can paint live, free of charge, and are said to have more accommodations, compared to the original First Friday, for everyone of different ages. 

“We saw strollers, wheelchairs with nanas and tatas, and we had something that was different, because you can't navigate like that in Roosevelt Row,” Garcia said.

Garcia has formed this space into a lively event where children can paint on a shared mural wall, artists can discuss their paintings and parents can walk around drinking beer. The community is able to explore and create their own art which was always the intention for the art district.

“I wouldn't build in a place where I didn't feel that my grandchildren wouldn't be safe,” Garcia said. “And we have done that successfully.”

The council intends to re-establish the infamous art walk for vendors to sell their art-related goods on private property and restore the art district for local artists. 

However, over the last few decades, the art representation has already disappeared as Rainey said that First Friday has formed into “a very commercial and entertainment district now,” which stopped him from participating years ago. 

“To call it an arts district is a disservice to everybody here, because it gives us this false sense of what we have,” Rainey said. 

Officials will gather data throughout the next 12 First Fridays. The community will see whether they can restore Roosevelt Row’s artistic glory or leave the nostalgic place in the past and move on to the next popular attraction.