Eastown

Walk east from downtown Grand Rapids and the map tightens into roughly seventy square blocks bounded by Fulton Street to the north, Fuller Avenue to the west, Martin Luther King Jr. Street to the south, and the East Grand Rapids city line to the east. The layout is a holdover from the streetcar age: this was a commuter suburb strung along the rail line that once ran from downtown out to the Reeds Lake resort, and the blocks were platted for people who walked to the car stop. That legacy shows in the density and the mixed-use seams, where residential streets run right up against the storefronts of the Wealthy-Lake-Norwood corridor. The five-way intersection at that corridor is the neighborhood's hinge, putting food, drink, and errands within a short walk of most addresses. Green space centers on Wilcox Park, which packs a playground, splash pad, basketball and tennis courts, a pavilion, and hammock stands into one block, with Coldbrook Creek threading from the park toward the Aquinas College campus that sits on the neighborhood's eastern side. The housing stock reflects the early-twentieth-century build-out, older frame and brick homes on compact lots close to the sidewalk. The trade Eastown makes is proximity: dense, walkable, and pinned between the campus, the commercial strip, and the East Grand Rapids line. The civic organization that runs the Streetfair and the gardens is covered on the Eastown Community Association page.