Every Saturday the Riverside Arts Market fills the space beneath the Fuller Warren Bridge alongside the St. Johns River. This is a weekly arts-and-crafts market that brings live music, food, art and fresh produce to this riverbank. It first opened to the public in the spring of 2009 and now unfolds every Saturday from 10AM to 3PM ET, rain or shine, year-round.
The market wraps around a 350-person amphitheater called the Northbank Riverwalk Artists’ Square and serves as the terminus for the Northbank Riverwalk, so the pulse of the river and the walkway are part of the experience. RAM is a program of Riverside Avondale Preservation, a neighborhood advocacy not-for-profit 501(c)3. RAP works to enhance and preserve the architecture, history, cultural heritage and economic viability of the historic neighborhoods of Riverside and Avondale through programs such as the Riverside Arts Market and the Home Tour.
Before it became this vibrant marketplace, the site had been slated as a retention pond surrounded by a chain-link fence. Wayne Wood, the founder of RAP, a Jacksonville activist and retired optometrist who moved to Jacksonville in 1971, saw potential for a greater use of the area and worked to model the Riverside. The Fuller Warren Bridge rises above you, the St. Johns River flowing beyond.