With me right now, we have Kelly Cruz, the executive director of the Downtown Racine Corporation.
And off the air, we were talking about the fifth of July bash, Downtown Racine, where they really transformed that place.
Who knew they can do something like that?
That flag, two fire engines were hanging the flag.
You see it from a distance, oh, it's pretty big.
Stand next to it, you'll see how big it is.
Yeah, that's
pretty
cool.
It was huge.
I couldn't believe it.
And when it rustles, it...
and it hits you, knock your head over on your fanny.
So yeah, that was wonderful.
We came in for the Racine Concert Band at the end of it.
What I also found amazing was I said to my wife, I said, there's no way they're going to clean this up at the time I have to go down Main Street in the morning.
There was no sign it ever existed.
All those tables, chairs, barriers, the flags, every the staging, all gone.
It was like it never existed.
There must have been a ball night working on that stuff.
You know, you have to do it.
You have to leave things just as good as you left them.
That's how it is almost at party on the pavement.
You know, you have
this
massive event.
And if you drive downtown on that Sunday morning, you're going to be like, I mean, wow, how did this event just happen here?
You know,
rides and like hundreds of vendors and like it's just it it feels eerie almost.
I used to want to put a note here in the studio.
Leave it as you found it.
Yeah, exactly.
OK, let's talk about some events coming that you this new brochure.
This is nice.
Yeah, I'm glad you're part of that email now.
Yeah.
Well, somebody gave it to me.
I don't know if I'm part.
I will be part of it.
Yes, you will.
Thank you very much.
All right.
We got Haymarket.
Haymarket Square.
A lot of people say, what's Haymarket Square?
Monument Square.
Yes.
Monument Square used to be called Haymarket.
So we're doing a little throwback with that because what is it?
It's a night market.
And so it's just this really cool vibe.
We only do six per year in the summertime on.
So tonight is one of the nights from four to seven p.m.
We've got just, you know, maxed out on vendors over 30 vendors there.
We've got live acoustic music.
We've got tables and chairs to sit at, grab dinner downtown or eat at one of the food trucks.
And it's just a really cool vibe at this market.
And it's just a really fun experience.
Now, I noticed coming up in August, Mark Paffrath is going to be there.
Yeah.
He's very good.
And also at the end of August, Ivy Ford is going to be there.
So if anybody who was downtown for the July 3rd, first Friday, she's an internationally known blues artist, she'll be there alone doing acoustic music.
So amazing, both Mark Paffrath and Ivy Ford, just wonderful.
And Terry James is going to be there tonight and then Roger's Randall is going to be there 23rd.
Yeah, it's
just it's really fun.
If you haven't explored down down there for that market yet, please do.
It's it's really fun.
Let's be great if you live downtown and you can just go on your balcony and watch all this stuff.
Yeah, that's sure.
You know, grab some goodies.
I mean, they've got some really I always end up coming home with honey or baked goods or something jams.
Okay, now this is not to be confused with music on the monument, something different.
Of course it's different.
Yeah, music on the monument is Friday concert series.
I'm guessing it's in close to its 15th year.
It's been a part of downtown Racine and it's really just to celebrate the local live music scene and come down again, you know, grab some food to go at a restaurant, sit in one of the chairs and just listen to really good music right off the lake.
It's it.
It's a racing tradition if you haven't done it.
Now, why if I took a walk around looking at the postcards on display?
I mean, I mean, big, giant postcards, the art exhibit this year.
Yeah.
So if you come down on Friday after work, you can look at all the postcards, then you can just kind of hear the live music.
You can also smoke down the water.
So if you can go back and forth between live musics and just just really explore downtown.
Yeah.
Some of those postcards are really.
Nice.
I mean, they're all nice, but some of them intricate postcards.
We had incredible artists this year.
We had over 50 artists apply and we went down to 25 artists and you can see the quality in these artists.
It's amazing.
Now, this is not to be confused with Saturday sounds on the square.
Yes.
So it's it's again, it's part of our live concert series.
So every Friday and Saturday, you can expect to have live music.
between 4.30 and 7.30 on Monument Square.
And again, we just really celebrate local live music.
It's a vibe.
There's a couple of vendors down there, usually one or two food trucks, but we also encourage you to go downtown and grab some food, go shopping.
It's really nice.
We do this concert series because if you are in downtown and you're just walking around or if you're staying at the hotel, having live music in a downtown.
adds this ambiance that you can't get anywhere else, right?
If you're walking around downtown on a Saturday in the summer and it's quiet, it just doesn't feel the same.
You have to have that, that music in the air, you know, the food smell in the air, just activities, seeing lots of tents put up on Monument Square.
So it really, it adds a lot.
Yeah, a quick story about music outside.
My brother's a doctor.
He's an optometrist and he was pretty, he's retired now, but him and his doctor friend,
Decided this when they lived in New York decided they just wanted to play the guitar on the streets I went to Greenwich Village Park their butts on the sidewalk open up their guitar and have people You know guitar box and have people throw money in it when they pass by cops on horseback throw a buck in and they just sat there playing guitar sitting on the street corner in Greenwich Village in New York City That two mornings later a patient comes in and Just dr. Rosen I gotta tell you my daughter was in New York the other day and she saw you sitting on a street corner
playing for quarters and money.
And I said, that couldn't be Dr. Rosen.
What would he be doing?
He said, yeah.
Oh, that's so cool.
He's just on weekends.
He used to go in with his friend to the doctor.
He used to just sit there with the guitars and play on the corner.
See, isn't that really
what makes downtown,
though, is having
some music in the air?
You really have to have that.
So yeah, so this Friday, we have Rust Belt, the band Rust Belt, and then Saturday, we have Scarlet Curve.
So please come on down, check it out, ride your bike downtown, take a walk, explore, and just have fun.
Now, I will tell you, it's going to be beautiful weekend, a beautiful weekend.
Beautiful weather all weekend.
It got partly sunny weather, Friday, sunny Saturday, Sunday, Sunday, no rain in the forecast at all.
Highs in the around low 80s.
So it's going to be perfect.
It's great.
It's going to be great.
Especially when it turns a little dark.
It'll be red.
I know.
And even tonight's going to be wonderful for a hay market.
It might be just going to be a little like overcast, which is just fine because it'll cool the air off.
And it's going to be
one.
Here's the big one.
Fish Fest.
Salmon.
That's what we used to call it.
Salmonorama is opening up tonight, right?
Uh,
Friday, Friday was today, Thursday.
I lose myself here.
You have the 10th through the 19th.
All right.
Today's the night.
We're talking about the weekend.
I got all screwed up.
All right.
July 10th through the 19th, Samadirama back at festival park.
And I can't believe the prize.
Get the biggest fish.
You got $50,000.
That is
crazy.
That's like you catch one, one good fish and you're set for life, or at least for a year anyway.
Yeah, this is a great 10-day festival that's returned back to Festival Park, so we're really excited to have them there.
They're opening up tomorrow afternoon, and there'll be live music on all the stages.
They've got great activities for the kids.
Of course, you can watch the fish coming in, which is always kind of fun.
They get the freezer there.
You can go down and you can see the big... Yeah, you
can kind of see them getting weighed.
So if you have
a family or kids, I remember doing that to this day when I first moved to...
to race scene that was one of the first things my dad did was take me down to Salmonorama and we were watching these fish come in and get weighed and I'm it was it's just cool.
I showed you a picture when we used to broadcast from Salmonorama for 11 days.
I did the show one day with a young man named Paul.
He's just starting out this business and you could say you saw the picture how young you looked.
Yeah.
It was Paul Ryan.
He just became so young.
He was a freshman congressman.
He sat there for the whole show and
We did Salmon Arama together.
Yeah, it's just cool that they brought it back.
They've expanded it.
It's a really good group of people, Salmon Unlimited, that run that.
And it's a lot of work to put it on.
So please, like I said, Friday and Saturday, come down to Music on the Monument or Saturday Sounds, go down to Salmon Arama, go down to the Racine Farmers Market on Saturday morning.
I mean, if you come downtown at all this weekend, there will be plenty to keep you occupied.
You ever go fishing before?
Yeah.
I went once in my life and it was it's they let the uh it was radio people let them go out on a boat the day before Salmonorama opened they put us on a boat and the guy baited my hawk I didn't want to stick anything on it put it to water I have a feeling there was some guy under the water putting their fish on my line
But I caught a fish.
I've never fished in Wisconsin or not in Racine.
I have fished in up north Wisconsin, but a lot of fishing in Montana.
But
I think I look at you.
But I think my fishing days are
big hip waiters in Montana.
Fly fishing.
No, no,
no.
OK, I picture you with a big hip way.
Fly fishing, throwing the line in the water.
Lord, no,
just good old
fashioned morning fishing.
Yeah.
Lots of fish that you catch in Glacier National Park, though.
Well, when I caught the fish, I said, I don't want him to die.
Put him back before he dies.
I just don't take that hook out and, you know, bandage him up.
Do what you got to do.
Put him back.
I didn't want to see him die.
I know.
So anyway, I had fun doing it, though.
I can't believe I put the thing in.
So a guy under this boat, he just hooked that fish on for me.
He said, no, you caught a fish.
Yeah.
Another cool thing about salmon or Emma, too, if you have kids, just walking along that dock.
around dusk at night and seeing all the onshore fishermen
just
sitting out there.
It's just a really, it's something to experience for sure.
Praying for the big one.
Yes.
Talking to Kelly Cruz, he's the executive director of the Downtown Racine Corporation.
We're just talking to so much going on during the summer.
During the winter, everything tends to be indoors.
In the summer, everything's outdoors.
Yes, you've got to take advantage of this, right?
Let's
talk about the summer of art, the stamp collection, the postcard collection.
Yeah, so downtown Racine is celebrating their 25th year of a public art.
We're one of the few downtowns in the entire country that has been able to pull this off continually.
I don't know if all of you remember, 25 years ago, it started off with dogs and then cats and then
bears.
No, the lighthouse started out.
in
it no it was it was
dogs first it
was dogs and then cats and then bears and then lighthouse was soon after they've done every we've done everything
under the sun i bought i bought the light us five hundred dollars in my living room
yes but so this year um you know it gets hard every year what can we do to be different
But this year, we decided to do giant greetings from Racine postcards.
And these are, I'm talking pretty large.
Yeah, these are not postcards.
These are giant things.
Yeah,
so when you drive down town, you certainly see them.
We partnered with Gateway Technical Welding students and they created all the bases for us.
So that was amazing.
And then we have 25 local artists and they all say either greetings from Racine or welcome to Racine.
And then so you can go and walk around downtown.
We have a scavenger hunt.
that you can do and answer questions about each giant postcard.
And then what's really cool this year is that you can actually take a piece of this public art home with you or mail it off because we've actually turned these giant postcards into postcards.
Yeah, so we've got, you can buy the whole set of 25 postcards.
You can just buy one single postcard.
If you finish the scavenger hunt, you get to pick out one collectible postcard for free.
But let's bring mailing postcards back in style.
I do it.
I'm the only guy who does mail postcards.
I still mail everything to the mail.
I mail all my bills.
I don't do anything electronically.
I love sending out postcards, right?
Well,
I should have brought you a couple.
Yeah, I send them out all the time to people.
Yeah, so you can, if you go downtown...
We'll be selling them all weekend at the Monument Square, but you can also buy them at the DRC office, at Dimple's Imports, at Lakeview Pharmacy, over at the marina.
So it's just really cool to see all of these postcards, giant postcards turn into art.
And they're great.
You can buy the whole set of 25.
What a cool gift thinking ahead for Christmas or for holidays or for...
family members to give a set of 25 celebrating racing
or frame them.
Yeah.
See, my wife, I'm a big movie theater fan, the actual buildings of the theaters.
And she was at the Gateway Arch thing on Main Street.
And years ago, she bought me the two prints and had them framed for my birthday.
And they're hanging in a living room.
I love them.
Yeah.
But they're the drawings of the old theaters that used to be on Main Street.
A lot of people are coming in and they're saying what we're like, oh, what are you going to do now?
And they're like, oh, no, we're going to frame these.
Haven't mattered.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So it's really neat.
And there's there's such really good ones.
I'm afraid of this one.
Bend and brew the bend the bending part.
It's free yoga.
It is free yoga and it is in the most serene, beautiful setting in downtown Racine.
So if anybody has ever been to the Marina or Reef Point Brewhouse, if you just keep walking east, you get to this kind of area where all of these sailboats tend to just sort of dock in the water and it's this beautiful, grassy, overlaid, tiered area.
So you're overlooking the water, totally serene.
You have sailboats that you're looking at and you're going to get to do free yoga.
So we have that every Wednesday evening at 5, 6 p.m., and then we have it every Saturday morning at 8 a.m.
and 9 a.m.
And then after you finish your free yoga, you get a card that's validated over 15 downtown locations, and you can use that card that day to get yourself a free coffee brew, a beer brew, a mimosa, a mocktail.
You know, everyone's doing something a little different, and so you can
You know, it's basically free, plus you get to explore downtown and try some place new that maybe you've never tried before.
I mean, you get to choice of 15 different places
that are
offering different stuff.
It's the bending.
I don't know if I could bend like that anymore.
Yeah.
I might be able to.
You
got to start somewhere, Don.
You got to start somewhere.
I don't know.
I got out of the chair today.
That was pretty good.
All right.
Here's something we went to, my wife and I, and it was really good.
The Racine Farmers Market went there on a beautiful morning.
And it was great.
Racine Farmers Market at Festival Park.
Yeah, it's right down at Festival Park every Saturday from 9 a.m.
to 1 p.m.
Produce is really starting to come in now that it's July.
So you can stock up on your vegetables there.
They've got a lot of different activities.
They usually have some acoustic music playing.
It's a really wonderful market for Racine in general.
So please come down and support that.
Come down and support those farmers and those vendors.
It's great.
Now, if anybody wants to see what we're talking about, and they say, well, you guys were talking so fast, I couldn't write it down.
Two things.
We're going to podcast this later today, so there.
Give me a minute.
But you can also see it now.
How do you get this information?
Yeah, you can go to raciendowntown.com and click on our events tab.
If you'd like to get signed up for our weekly email, that goes out.
put you in the know of everything happening.
Just go ahead and email us at events at raciendowntown.com and we're going to get you signed up and every week you'll have something in your inbox letting you know exactly what's going on throughout downtown.
Well, look at that.
Who came up with that idea?
Well, we've been doing it for a long time, but
you just
weren't part of the Cool Kids Club.
Yeah, I found out about this thing called email recently and I think I'm going to get it.
I'm not sure yet.
Okay, quit review.
Hey market July July 9th tonight.
We start with Terry James at the a market square, which is aka monument square
That's correct.
So that's
pretty see you there tonight.
It's gonna be a blast
by the way went to the dedication of My mind just goes to melt every once in a while they dedicated the old Civil War training ground
right where Main Street runs into Wisconsin Avenue, that little triangle
down
by DeCoven Avenue.
Oh, man, I forget the...
Yes, they did recently do that.
And a lot of the cannons, some of those cannons you see around, well, from that, from the Civil War training, they used to shoot the cannons into the lake.
So I'm sure if you were able to sift through all that dirt or silt in that you'd find some of the old cannonballs under
there.
Oh, that's so
cool.
And because they were old journals saying that's where they did their practice shot, the cannonballs into the lake.
Now there were no homes in between them and the lake at the time.
So it's not like they had to shoot through two homes.
But yeah, that was kind of, uh, Utley, Camp Utley.
Oh, nice.
Colonel Utley and they went to the dedication.
And now you look at some of the cannons around town and now you know where they.
some of them came from yeah
that's cool
and we're very protective of those cannons people want them yeah
monument square is pretty cool i mean you always got that pigeon right on top of that soldier's head and you got the cannons it's very unique i love it
we saw some seagulls sitting on the building just on the north side of monument square
It was under
the seagulls.
Yeah, the seagulls and my wife say they are the commission watching watching everything that goes on making their decisions.
I'm telling you,
every time you drive downtown, look on top of the monument and you will see a seagull there.
OK, we got music on the monument and tomorrow night will be Rust Belt.
Yes.
Music and that is from 4 30 till 7 30 p.m.
Music on the monument.
Then the music doesn't stop Saturday sounds on the square this Saturday Scarlet Curve and Saturday's 4 30 to 7 30 p.m.
And I gotta keep telling you, it's gonna be beautiful weather this whole weekend.
Tomorrow's sunny, Saturday's sunny, Sunday's sunny, no rain in the forecast at all.
Love that.
I know.
Love summers in Wisconsin.
These are their sweat that out when you have an outdoor event.
Please, please,
please,
please.
Absolutely.
I'll be good if
there's
no rain.
I start looking at the forecast
constantly because rain is a killer.
And you always say, I'll be good.
I'll be good.
If you give me no rain, I'll be good forever, I promise.
I tell ya.
I'm like...
Especially party on the pavement because so much work goes into that one day.
I
know.
I just have to do a rain dance, an anti-rain dance or something.
I don't know.
Okay, so one more time.
If somebody wants to get all this information at a moment's click on their phone or computer, they go to?
Simply email us at events at racingdowntown.com.
That's events at racingdowntown.com.
Just say sign me up.
And you will start getting our weekly email
blast.
Could you go online and look at this stuff?
And you can also always go to our website.
We have every event that's happening in Downtown Racine at Racindowntown.com.
There you go.
Everything's there.
Well, you guys really have this down to a science.
We're
organized.
You are organized.
I went to your office to pick something up.
Very organized.
Well, thank you very much, Kelly Cris.
Thank
you, Don.
See you next month.
I can't wait
to see you at the yoga this Saturday.
Yeah, I'll be bending at the yoga.
I used to be able to bend.
I used to do all those gymnastic things in high school.
You know, you had to do them in part of the gym class.
I
was bending and doing stuff, but you get a little older.
Oh,
it goes out of whack.
Well, give it a thought.
You know, you're going to say this and somebody's going to hear, like my wife, I got you a yoga mat for Christmas this year.
Well, take it back.
Oh, no.
Actually, I did when I had my surgery a couple of years ago, I did some exercise and bending and stuff.
You can do it, but it takes a while.
It does take some
time.
It's like getting your car.
You get oil and lubed.
Yes, you got to take care of it.
Thank you, Kelly.
All right.
Thanks, Don.
Have a good one.
You too.
Kelly Crews from the Downtown Racine Corporation.