Sixth Avenue is a major avenue in Tacoma, Washington, which throughout a large portion of the city provides the division between the north and south numbered streets.
Previous to the construction of State Route 16, Sixth Avenue was a portion of the designated route through Tacoma to reach the Tacoma Narrows Bridge. As such, it developed as the primary east-west business corridor through Central/North Tacoma. The historic business district of Sixth Avenue from approximately Sprague to Proctor remains one of the most active business districts in the city, hosting numerous shops, restaurants, and nightclubs. Newer strip mall style shopping centers have developed in the portions of Sixth Avenue between Orchard and Jackson.
The Sixth Avenue Merchants Association has an art committee that actively promotes the creation and installation of public art projects in the district. Works include murals, artist decorated garbage cans, sculpture and more.
Sixth Avenue plays host to the yearly "Art on the Ave" event, featuring art, food, cars, and live music in a section of the historic business district.
Day of the Dead is also celebrated on Sixth Avenue. Several paper mache classes are held and the public is invited to learn to make Day of the Dead figures. On November second a procession is held. There are musicians on several street corners and after the procession participants gather for Mexican hot chocolate and cakes.
Famous quotes containing the words sixth and/or avenue:
“All my life long I have been sensible of the injustice constantly done to women. Since I have had to fight the world single-handed, there has not been one day I have not smarted under the wrongs I have had to bear, because I was not only a woman, but a woman doing a man’s work, without any man, husband, son, brother or friend, to stand at my side, and to see some semblance of justice done me. I cannot forget, for injustice is a sixth sense, and rouses all the others.”
—Amelia E. Barr (1831–1919)
“Play is a major avenue for learning to manage anxiety. It gives the child a safe space where she can experiment at will, suspending the rules and constraints of physical and social reality. In play, the child becomes master rather than subject.... Play allows the child to transcend passivity and to become the active doer of what happens around her.”
—Alicia F. Lieberman (20th century)