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tony allegretti
summertime in the city festival organizerFrom: EU
“We want to raise awareness of the fact that there is no recycling downtown. That’s just a tragedy that we have to at least acknowledge. I don’t think most people in the city know that the most important neighborhood in our city doesn’t reduce, reuse and recycle.”
Tony Allegretti is a name associated with many of the good things happening downtown over the course of the last seven or eight years. When he was with Downtown Vision, he helped bring events such as ArtWalk, Take Me to the River, and Jazz in June to the people of downtown. As a part owner of Burrito Gallery, he has continued that mission and constantly improved the quality of life for people downtown. Although this is the second installation of Summertime in the City, this is the first year that Tony has taken part in the leadership of the event. It is Tony that brought the “green” aspect to the festival, giving it the “new urban” concept that includes sustainable living, financing home ownership in distressed neighborhoods, and a festival with a minimal carbon footprint.
Although Summertime is a “green” festival, that doesn’t make it more about message than hip-hop.
“We’re not trying to be overwhelming with message, but we did make it so it’s about quality of life and the quality of life for everybody, and being able to afford your place and have an earth that we aren’t always abusing. All with a cold beer and good jams.”
EU caught up with Tony at Burrito Gallery and asked him a few questions about the festival and the partners he has rallied together.
EU: Let me ask you about Jazz in June. I know that, conceptually, there is a large part of Jazz in June that you have taken into Summertime in the City…
TA: Well, just in terms of having a big outdoor jam. Jazz in June was jazz and we had jazz derivatives; really good soul and really good hip-hop…and it’s non-violent. It’s good, it’s roots, it’s blues. It’s our cultural DNA.
EU: How do you address an average Jacksonvillian who might live in the outskirts, and their misconception of hip-hop as being all gangster rap?
TA: Marketing the hip-hop is outside of my expertise. Ian hooks all that up. I don’t know how to tell somebody except to tell them to go to a show downtown. I’m super lucky to have Ian around. He books half my stuff. I call him for the jazz, the hip-hop, almost anything with soul. Plus the break-dancers. I’ve worked with them probably 20 times and every time they kill it. They provide content that you just can’t get on cable or anywhere else, and usually the backdrop is the river or drinking a cold beer. What more do you want? It’s a great thing.
EU: It seems to me that the whole concept of Summertime in the City is like an abstract painting, in that people wouldn’t organically put together this idea of the new urbanism, a sustainable and diverse community, with hip-hop, and yet when you put it all together in this festival it somehow seems to make sense. How does that tie together?
TA: If you look at the greatest neighborhoods in the greatest cities in the world, the one thing they have is respect for diversity. They have a walkable and sustainable culture. They know everybody that they see everyday.
EU: For instance? New York?
TA: Well, the neighborhoods in New York. Yes, Chelsea. Yes, if you go out to Williamsburg. Those are hyper-realized. Chicago is the same way and so is Memphis. Milwaukee is just like us except they’ve got ten million lofts right in the middle of downtown that are affordable to a wide variety of people. That’s true here, but it’s a little more disconnected, a little further out. But look at Riverside and Springfield. You can make a modest income and live in Springfield right now. I’ve been working with Ian for 7 years, and this is a lot like other shows, but we are starting to put in messages and we are starting to get serious about taking care of it.
EU: For a long time you have been, whether you wanted to or not, a figurehead for the urban core. You’ve popularized the idea of living downtown, doing business downtown and really centralizing Jacksonville culture. What do you think Jacksonville needs that Summertime in the City can help get?
TA: Well, we got to start looking at the recycling and the ramifications of how we can take care of this and thrive so that people want to be down here. Then they come down here all the time and want to live down here. And more and more people are doing that every year. Once you live down here, you realize, “Holy sh*t, we have to work on some things.” But the people that live down here have such loyalty. They get into it.