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North End Urban Arts Festival Brings Familiar Feeling To Historically Latino Neighborhood

Hugo Phan
/
KMUW
The Nomar International Marketplace (foreground) at Nomar Plaza and the Nomar Theatre and storefronts will be the site of the North End Urban Arts Festival this weekend.

Nearly 4,000 people are expected to attend the North End Urban Arts Festival on Saturday.

The annual festival is known for colorful artwork, music and Mexican food. This year's event will add pop-up shops including a retail store, a coffee shop and an art gallery inside empty storefronts near the former Nomar Theatre to encourage entrepreneurship in the historically Latino neighborhood.

Credit Facebook / North End Urban Arts Festival
/
North End Urban Arts Festival

Festival organizer Armando Minjarez says there will also be pedestrian and bike friendly spaces.

"We’re going to add landscaping, additional lighting – really turning a space, really inviting, you know," Minjarez says. "[It's] very much like the spaces that I grew up around in Mexico, right where you see grandma and grandpa sitting around kids running around, local vendors selling their paletas or elotes. We really want to recreate something that we are already familiar with."

Fifteen local graffiti writers and artists are expected to create vibrant street art during the festival.

The festival will be held on Saturday near 21st & Broadway from 3 p.m.–10 p.m.

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Carla Eckels is interim news director and the host of Soulsations. Follow her on Twitter @Eckels.

 
To contact KMUW News or to send in a news tip, reach us at news@kmuw.org.

 

Carla Eckels is Director of Organizational Culture at KMUW. She produces and hosts the R&B and gospel show Soulsations and brings stories of race and culture to The Range with the monthly segment In the Mix. Carla was inducted into The Kansas African American Museum's Trailblazers Hall of Fame in 2020 for her work in broadcast/journalism.