A little over a week ago I attended one of the First Fridays Allentown events. Although we didn't make it to many destinations that night, we did happen upon a pretty cool scene at Comand Solutions. What is especially interesting is that Comand Solutions is not even a gallery - it is a company that specializes in Content Management Solutions (CMS) for businesses. Being in Allentown however, the owners decided that they would open the doors to the business on these special Allentown artistic occasions - a practice that should be taken into consideration by more non-art oriented entities.

As I walked around the first floor of the business I happened to talk to a number of visitors who had just strolled in to take a look at the art, view the projection slides, sample the food and listen to the DJ samplings. "How do you know about Comand Solutions," I repeatedly asked people. It turned out that not many visitors had heard about Comand, they had merely been enticed into the 'gallery' because they were participating in the Gallery Walk. To them, this was another gallery in Allentown... they were surprised to hear that the building actually served an entirely different purpose... what a concept!

I often look around and I see businesses on Elmwood (like a tax place - why do they need a storefront when they are open so infrequently?) that are never open and really don't add anything to the commercial district. And then I see other places like Comand that make a concerted effort to interact with the community by joining up with others involved with events like First Fridays. This is the way to attract even more customers to a district, which in turn attracts more enterprising people like Anne Kaufman - a photographer who is opening a studio across the street from Comand Solutions (I bet that First Fridays played a hand in the decision to open where she did).