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The Van Duzer Saturdays have begun.  These are four Saturdays in July  when the street is blocked off to vehicle traffic and the local merchants and  neighbors fill the block with activities for kids and adults.  The merchants show case their stores and services, local musicians perform and there’s even a little crafts and flea market in an alley off of the main street.  I was there the first saturday with irma and Toni from the friends of Fire at Casterbridge Fair Store which is about a block and a half away from the main events on Van Duzer.

Irma was showing her jewelry and a few photographs, Toni was selling her hand made pillows.

I was there under our tent with jewelry  and  prints.

On Van Duzer kids were painting, taking Karate lessons and listening to live music.

There was an engaging belly dance performance in the early afternoon.

Later in the afternoon, the group Queen Tipsy performed, the singer is Phyllis Forman. You’ll find them on FaceBook.

here’s pan shot of the whole block.

This past saturday was the Saturday in which the Second Saturday  takes place, that’s a different organization that lists and produces a map for art events and performances taking place on Staten Island the Second Saturday of each month.  Our store held a ‘Seconds’ sale  and on van duzer a card board New york city was built.  It even had a model of the Verrazano Bridge, kids  with their parents built  and painted it.

I was surprised to see and old neighbor  appear at the event, here’s Smith, he moved from our neighborhood around Tysen street a year or two ago. He was there with his daughter Aslan working on the cardboard city.

There were a number of kids running around, these girls were cute and energetic.

Irma and I were in Peddler’s Alley again this week, we were joined by Janice who makes shibori dyed silks.  The other artist/dealers didn’t show up, our weather forecast  was for a slow moving thunderstorm that was dropping 1″ of rain per hour; of course, after scaring everyone, the storm failed to materialize. It was probably the main reason attendance was down. Irma shared my tent incase there was a sudden downpour.

As the day ended, the inhabitants of our alley showed up. They are being fed by one of the people who lives here.  They are feral cats in need of health care, homes and neutering.  It made us feel bad to see them suffer, but we couldn’t get near them, they watched us and ran to hide if we approached them. I like the kitten on the far left but Henry is enough and probably wouldn’t be happy if we brought another cat home.