San Pedro Now Has Two Art Walks: How First Thursday and Second Saturday Differ This Season

In 1997, about eight or ten people met at The Whale & Ale and sat at the two tables with bench seats in the front window. They were there to plan something downtown San Pedro didn't have yet. Alan Johnson called the meeting. He was president of the first Merchant BID at the time and wanted to celebrate downtown as what he called "a naturally occurring, decades-old arts district." The group talked about public art and murals, then settled on a monthly art walk.

Twenty-nine years later, that art walk has company. Downtown artists started a Second Saturday walk in November 2025, and the two are now building separate calendars. One is an evening event a business district markets and manages. The other is an afternoon run by the artists who own the studios.

A business district started it, and artists filled it

According to San Pedro Today's 27th-anniversary oral history, the ArtWalk was started by artists, restaurateurs and urban planners who wanted to bring locals and visitors back downtown through arts and culture. The founding group included Liz Schindler Johnson, Andrew Silber, Robin Hinchcliffe, Marylyn Ginsburg Kaus, David Meffert, John Fentis, Liz and Jerry Fagan of Lad 'n Lassie, Warren Gunter and Alan Johnson. Liz Schindler Johnson remembered that early committee meetings were about the poster and branding. The group chose a poster by David Meffert, who ran an advertising and graphic design business in town. She also helped get the area cleaned up and the trash cans emptied so the district would look presentable.

So the job of running the evening was there from the first year, and it never fully belonged to the galleries. Over time the walk grew from a gallery night into a community gathering with live music and food trucks. It still covers the same footprint: Pacific Avenue to Harbor Boulevard, between 4th and 9th Streets, from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. on the first Thursday of every month.

The San Pedro Waterfront Arts District, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that exists to support and promote San Pedro artists, hosted this year's 29th-anniversary invitation. It asked the public to Los Angeles Harbor Arts at 401 S. Mesa St. on Nov. 5 for an evening of local art and open studios.

Who runs the evening now

Day-to-day operations are a separate question from the anniversary party. In March 2026, columnist Devonte Barr described a Saturday-morning meeting of downtown artists at Los Angeles Harbor Arts in Random Lengths News. He reported that several artists wanted more of a voice in First Thursday, which San Pedro's Historic Waterfront Business Improvement District, known as the PBID, markets and manages.

The topics in that account were practical ones: event hours, sanitation, security staffing, trolley schedules and cross-promotion. The column also explained the structure behind them. The PBID collects assessments from property owners and handles vendor contracting, and the artists in the room were asking for a seat at the table when those contracts come up for renewal. The column summed up what the meeting was really about:

"Specifically: who controls the money, who controls the brand, and who gets to decide what 'culture' looks like downtown."

The PBID comes up for renewal in December 2027, and the next renewal cycle runs another five years. That puts the conversation about how First Thursday is run, staffed and promoted on a calendar of its own over the next year.

The afternoon walk artists built

Second Saturday came out of the same discussion, and it came first. Random Lengths News reported in October 2025 that downtown San Pedro's art community had created a Second Saturday ArtWalk. The first one ran Nov. 8, 2025, from 1 to 7 p.m., the same weekend as the San Pedro International Film Festival.

The March 2026 column described it as open studios, flexible hours and minimal programming: a quieter correction meant to bring the focus back to the art itself. That makes it a daytime walk run by the people who own the studios, held on the weekend after the evening event a business district runs.

Here's how the two compare:

One gallery sits on both calendars

Los Angeles Harbor Arts is the clearest place to see how the two walks overlap. LAHA, formerly The Loft, is at 401 S. Mesa St. and offers gallery exhibitions and private artist studios. It dates to the mid-1990s. Resident artist Jan Govaerts helped found The Loft Studios and Gallery with seven studio mates. Carol Hungerford directs the gallery today, and the resident artists include Govaerts and Michael Stearns, whose studio is in the building.

LAHA hosted the artists' March meeting and the First Thursday anniversary invitation. This fall it also has the biggest exhibition on either walk. Dutch painter Wim van Aken is having his U.S. debut there. According to Random Lengths News, his work has never been shown in America before, although much of his collection is now in Los Angeles. The paper also noted that contemporary Dutch painting usually reaches Los Angeles through international fairs such as Frieze Los Angeles, not through a neighborhood gallery.

The show's schedule uses both walks. The opening reception is on a Second Saturday, Nov. 14, from 1 to 4 p.m. More viewings follow on the Dec. 12 Second Saturday, which is also the show's last day. The gallery is open on First Thursdays through December from 6 to 9 p.m., and private viewings can be booked by emailing [email protected].

Two other spaces nearby show how the art walk crowd has grown. Solo., an artist-run gallery founded in fall 2024, is at 366 W. 7th St. PIXELS Gallery and Creative Space, the gallery run by Port of Los Angeles High School, is at 439 W. 6th St. Both are a short walk from LAHA, and both are run by people other than the business district.

The next three art days, in order

The van Aken show conveniently lays out the season. From Nov. 14 to Dec. 12, every art walk date downtown has something to see at LAHA:

1. Saturday, Nov. 14: Second Saturday. The van Aken opening reception runs 1 to 4 p.m. at LAHA, 401 S. Mesa St. It's the easiest afternoon to see the show with the gallery full.
2. Thursday, Dec. 3: First Thursday. The ArtWalk runs 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. San Pedro Today's listing advertises guided tours, open galleries, outdoor dining and live music near 6th and Mesa. LAHA is open 6 to 9 p.m., so it stays open half an hour after the walk ends. Earlier this year, the guided tour met at Port Town Brewing, 285 W. 7th St., at 6 p.m. and left at 6:30 for an hour-long walk past local artists and galleries.
3. Saturday, Dec. 12: Second Saturday. This is the last day of the van Aken exhibition.

For the Thursday evening, the organizer's June 2026 listing says downtown has plenty of metered street parking that's free after 6 p.m., plus paid lots throughout the area. The First Thursday site posts each month's details ahead of the walk.

The Stucker Group has followed downtown San Pedro long enough to see its art nights change, and we enjoy keeping up with these blocks between walks too. If you live near 6th and Mesa or elsewhere in San Pedro and want to know what your home would be worth today, The Stucker Group is glad to help. Request Your Free Home Valuation, and we'll put together a local read on the blocks you know best.