South El Paso Street is El Paso’s most vibrant street. In the daytime, South El Paso Street is what our city planners aspire to. Walkable, dense, active. Honest people doing honest work, merchants and buyers engaged in free trade. A model of small scale capitalism. South El Paso Street is comprised almost exclusively of independent small businesses, and independent small businesses are the backbone of the El Paso, American, and world economies.
But the storekeepers start rolling down the shutters around 6. Despite the City’s best efforts, downtown remains a ghost town after dark.
More than 10,000 pedestrians cross the downtown bridge every day. Some of them are going to work at their jobs at MacDonald’s, or Sushito, but a lot of them are coming to shop. Some will catch buses to far flung malls, discount stores, and specialty retailers. A big chunk of those 10,000 pedestrians will go no further than South El Paso Street, to the boutiques and purveyors of sundries right there in El Paso’s first blocks.
Many are specialty stores. Stores that sell only blankets and rugs. Stores that specialize in denim. A wig store. Plastic flowers. Jewelry and watch batteries. There are stores that sell fashion in all it’s flavors, name brand and off-brand.
There is more reasons than shopping on South El Paso Street to cross over the bridge, and many of the shoppers live in El Paso. But shopping remains El Paso’s most popular participatory sport, edging out Bud Light by a whisker.
All you culture vultures need to go shop on South El Paso Street. It’s not just good value bang for your buck, it’s also the border turned up to eleven. “Levanta Pompis” blue jeans, anyone?