Downey Turns 70 This Month. One Local Landmark Got There First.

In his Downey Patriot column at the end of August, Mayor described a strange bit of civic math. The city had just marked the 73rd anniversary of its McDonald's, calling it a Downey institution and noting it's the second oldest operating McDonald's in the world. Two sentences later, he invited readers to the I Love Downey Festival on September 19, the party marking 70 years since Downey incorporated as a city. Read that back and the arithmetic holds. That McDonald's was already selling burgers three years before Downey had the legal right to call itself a city.

That's the kind of detail that tells you something about how this place actually works. Downey doesn't measure its history in decades so much as in the businesses and rituals that outlasted whoever was running city hall at the time. This September gives you two very different-sized ways to feel that, and knowing how they connect changes how you plan your month.

The Festival Is One Saturday. The Practice Runs Every Other Thursday.

The big one is easy to spot on a calendar. The I Love Downey Festival runs September 19 from 3 to 8 p.m. on Downey Avenue between 2nd and 4th Street, with live bands, an art exhibition, a beer and wine garden, and the kind of community booths and giveaways that come with a 70th birthday. The mayor said he hoped to see people arrive by 4 p.m., which tells you this isn't a stop-in-for-ten-minutes kind of event.

What's easy to miss is that Downey Avenue between 2nd and 4th isn't a special closure built just for this one Saturday. It's the same stretch that Angel City Market has been closing to traffic for the Downtown Downey Night Market every second and fourth Thursday, an event now old enough that Eventbrite lists 2026 as its fifth year running. If you've walked past the flyers for that one and figured it was just another pop-up market, it's worth reconsidering. Five years of the same two blocks closing on a predictable schedule means the street closure, the vendor logistics, and the foot traffic pattern are already solved problems by the time a bigger event like the 70th anniversary festival needs them.

This September, the night market itself leans into the anniversary mood too. The September 10 market carried a Hispanic Heritage Month theme with live mariachi, and the September 24 date follows with a Selena tribute. So the same two blocks host three separate gatherings over two weeks, two of them free and recurring, one of them the biggest version of the year.

What the Festival Adds That the Market Doesn't

The night market and the festival share a footprint, but they're not the same event wearing a bigger hat. The recurring Thursday market is dozens of vendors and food trucks with a DJ, a format built for browsing after work. The I Love Downey Festival is city-produced and built around the anniversary itself: live bands rather than a single DJ, an actual art exhibition, and a beer and wine garden that a free Thursday pop-up doesn't carry. It's also the one night this year where the city is explicitly asking residents to show up for the history, not just the shopping.

If you've only ever caught the Thursday version, September 19 is worth treating as the full-scale edition of something you already half-know how to attend. You know where to park, you know the street closes at 2nd and 4th, and you already have a sense of how the block fills in. The only difference is the size of the production and the reason for it.

After the Tents Come Down

Neither event runs late, and if you're not ready to call it a night once the vendor tents fold up, Downey Brewing Company on Paramount Boulevard has been the default answer since 2008. It's known locally for 62 beers on tap and a boot-shaped glass regulars call the DAS Boot, and it's close enough to downtown that walking off a night market or a festival evening into a stool at the bar has been a known move for a while now. It's not part of either event's official footprint, but it's the kind of walk-in-anytime spot that gives a Thursday or a Saturday somewhere to land.

A Mile West, the Mall Is Also Marking Time

The 70th anniversary isn't only a downtown story. Stonewood Center, the mall at Firestone and Lakewood that opened just two years after Downey incorporated, is in the middle of a visible renovation right now, with new paint, updated lighting, and a food court refresh underway. Mall officials recently announced that fashion retailer Windsor, jewelry retailer Torre & Co Jewelers, and an expanded See's Candies are joining the lineup, and the former Sears space is being rebuilt into a Round1 entertainment complex with bowling, arcade games, and billiards, a project the Downey Planning Commission approved and that's expected to open this year.

None of that is tied to the festival on the calendar. But it's worth noticing that the same season Downey is celebrating 70 years of being a city, its oldest mall is spending real money to look like it belongs in the next 70. A place doesn't renovate this visibly unless it expects people to keep showing up.

The Rest of the Fall Keeps the Theme Going

The 70th anniversary isn't going to end when the festival tents come down on September 19. The Downey Christmas Parade returns for its 70th year this December, tracking the same anniversary math as the summer's festival and running down Downey Avenue from Florence to City Hall. If you're the kind of resident who plans a season around what's happening two blocks over, this is the year both bookends of the calendar are pointing at the same birthday.

And if you find yourself on Imperial Highway later this year, you may notice construction at the long-vacant corner of Imperial and Bellflower Boulevard, where the city's second In-N-Out has been approved. It's meant to ease the lines that build up at the original Firestone and Lakewood location, and it's a small, practical reminder that Downey's growth this year isn't only ceremonial. Some of it is just about making the drive-through line shorter.

What This Means If You Live Here

None of this requires you to do anything differently, which is the point of a piece like this. You don't need tickets for the festival, you don't need to plan around the night market, and you don't need to track a mall renovation. What's useful is simply knowing that the two blocks of Downey Avenue you drive past without thinking twice have spent five years quietly becoming the place the city trusts with its biggest party of the year. That kind of continuity doesn't show up on a flyer. It shows up when you know the history behind the routine.

If you're already home in Downey and curious about what a market like this one means for your own street, your equity, or a move you've been mulling over, I'm always happy to talk it through. I'm Karina Chavez with Karina Chavez Realty, and Let's Connect whenever the timing feels right for you.