There's a 30-foot stretch of exposed industrial piping along a brick pathway in San Antonio's Pearl Brewery district that got yarn-bombed a few months ago. According to the local guerrilla knitting group Yarn Dawgz, which installed the long, brightly striped sock, it's a pipe cozy. No bureaucratic spoilsports have tried to get rid of it yet, nor did they protest when the Dawgz covered some chairs and tables with colorful fuzz a couple of Thanksgivings ago.
Stunts like these are quite all right with Elizabeth Fauerso, marketing director for the Pearl. In fact, "we encourage them," she said. It's that attitude as much as discerning, local-flavor developments that makes this pedestrian- and bike-friendly neighborhood, located a few miles up the river from downtown, such a draw for residents and visitors alike.
The site of a former brewery along the Museum Reach section of the famous Riverwalk, the Pearl is this Texas city's counterpart to Minneapolis' Mill District and North Loop, but even more scenic. A deliberately rustic amphitheater in the park features Échale concerts of alternative-Latin music six times a year and free movies. Other times it's filled with couples and families just taking their ease, maybe having a picnic. Public artworks dot the Riverwalk like tapas tempting passersby to visit the nearby San Antonio Museum of Art.
The Culinary Institute of America recently opened its third branch in the Pearl, which already is home to some of the hottest restaurants in town. Throw in a craft brewpub, hip clothing and houseware boutiques, a homey, impeccably stocked indie bookstore and a farmers market, and it adds up to an oasis of individuality in a sprawling city of chain-store shopping malls.
Unlike so many of San Antonio's attractions, the Pearl doesn't require a car. The Museum Reach is the turnaround basin for river taxis that come about every 25 to 35 minutes and head back downtown. Or you can rent two wheels from a B-cycle bike-share station downtown and take a pleasant 15-minute, 3-mile ride to the area.
Salvaged chic
The original brewery, which was built in 1881, became the largest in Texas until Prohibition forced a product change to soft drinks and ice cream. Pabst took over the place in 1985, but shut it down 16 years later.
A prominent local developer bought the 22-acre property shortly after. Minnesota-founded Aveda Institute was the first tenant in 2009, moving into an old gas station and keeping the vintage pumps as a style statement.
An industrial-chic motif runs throughout the area, with salvaged and repurposed remnants of its former utilitarian ambience around every corner. The brewery itself, a 120-year-old Victorian structure, is being renovated into a luxury boutique hotel that will hold on to a grand circular staircase and convert old tankers into banquettes.
