For years the joke around here was that summer belonged to the water and not much else. The snowbird set was gone, the season restaurants were dark, and if you wanted a real night out you drove south. That has quietly stopped being true. The stretch of Flagler Drive between Banyan and Fern, the marina district up at the North End, and the museum campus on South Dixie now run a full calendar from June through September. The America 250 celebration on July 4 is the loudest example, but it is not the only one, and residents who know how to string a weekend together can now do it without leaving a two-mile radius.
Here is how the next few weekends actually look on the ground.
The July 4 Anchor: America 250 on Flagler
The city is treating this Fourth as a once-in-a-generation moment, and the programming reflects it.
