Last Blues of Dusk by Susanna Heller at the John Davis Gallery There is a hardly-secret, yet too-seldom-applied formula for enlivening Main Streets at night. Rather than play favorites, let us offer one example of a town from outside our region that applies it brilliantly: East Hampton, on eastern Long Island. There is a movie theater right in the thick of things, always an excellent traffic generator. But a movie theater alone is insufficient. Restaurants, a book store, an ice cream parlor, a candy store, galleries, shops, must all conspire to capture the attention of movie-goers before and after the show. Eventually, traffic builds, and people just out for a stroll, not necessarily movie-theater bound, join the parade. That's how a noon-to-six town transforms itself into a hive of evening activity that serves 24/7, 21st-century sensibilities. Now, the Hudson merchants group, BeLo3rd, in its on-going effort to draw traffic down to the lower end of Warren Street, have taken one simple step toward realizing that Avenue of Dreams' full potential: coordinated gallery openings. This Saturday, seven galleries will hold openings on the same night (most, but not all, are below 3rd). As Ellen Thurston, Hudson's semi-official Appointments Secretary, asks in her {encode="thurston@mhonline.net" title="weekly newsletter"}, "What to call this explosion of activity? A Crawl? A Stroll? A walk on the wild side, perhaps?" Let's just call it smart. The galleries that will be holding openings this Saturday afternoon into evening are the Davis Orton Gallery, Gallery at Tommy's, Gallery 135, Hudson Opera House, J. Damiani Gallery, John Davis Gallery, and the Limner Gallery. For details see Art Intelligence, above.
