Where Raymond Avenue's Thursday Evenings Go After the Farmers Market

Where does a Thursday evening on Raymond Avenue go once the farmers market tents come down? For most of the year the answer is the Vassar College Alumnae Lawn. The Arlington Farmers Market runs there from 3 to 7 p.m. on Thursdays. The Arlington Has It event calendar shows October 22 and October 29 as the last market dates of the season.

The evening keeps going after that, just indoors. It moves into two buildings about a block and a half apart. One is a 1938 movie theater that has started serving dinner again. The other is a free art museum that stays open until 9 p.m. on Thursdays and is showing an exhibition about Poughkeepsie's own bridges, rail station, and basketball courts. Between them, Arlington's Thursday evenings run all winter.

The theater that has an evening crowd again

The Juliet Theater opened in January 1938 at the corner of Collegeview and Raymond Avenues, according to the Vassar Encyclopedia's history of Arlington. The Poughkeepsie Journal reported in 2014 that Netco Theatres built it. By then the building had been empty for close to two years, and Vassar was renovating it for its college store. Between the movie years and the store, the building spent the 1990s and 2000s as a popular billiards hall.

On September 8, the restaurant Giulia opened at 60 Raymond Avenue in that same building. The campus store is still there, just to the right of the restaurant. Giulia comes from Giovanni Ilardi and Michael Purcell, who also own Spettro, the Italian gastropub around the corner at 44 Lagrange Avenue. In Chronogram's October review, Purcell explained where the name came from.

"She is named as a homage to the warm, matriarchal figures in Italian family heritage who brought everyone around the dinner table. We wanted a name that sounded classic, personal, and hospitable—like visiting an old friend or family member who always makes sure you're fed incredibly well."

Chronogram also reports that the name nods to the building itself.

Giulia also runs on two schedules, and the second one is what makes it a Thursday-night stop. In the daytime it runs walk-up counter service, and Caffe Giulia, its espresso bar and gelateria, sells things like an olive oil cake for $6. Lunch adds focaccia sandwiches and 18-inch New York-style sourdough pizzas. In the evening the room switches to hosted seating, with scratch-made pastas, red-sauce classics, craft cocktails, and a curated wine list. Chronogram calls it "a trattoria minus the white tablecloth." Lauren Coleman, culinary director for Spettro Hospitality Group, developed the menus. Pastas and pizzas run $18 to $25.

So the Juliet is running the hours it had when it was a movie house. For most of its life it was where you went on Raymond Avenue after dark. Now it plays that role again.

The museum that keeps Thursday open until 9

A short walk up Raymond Avenue, the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center at 124 Raymond Avenue is free. The Loeb's visitor page lists regular hours of Tuesday through Sunday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., closed Mondays. From September through May it stays open until 9 p.m. on Thursdays.

That late night is the bridge between the two seasons. The market ends at 7 p.m. on Thursdays, and the Loeb's late hours run on that same night of the week straight through the cold months. Once the October market dates are over, the museum still has seven months of Thursday evenings ahead.

Here is how one Thursday can run with both buildings:

A gallery of places you drive past

The exhibition that ties the Loeb most closely to Arlington is Common Ground: Art and Infrastructure in Poughkeepsie. It opened September 5, 2026. The Loeb's exhibitions page lists January 31, 2027, as the closing date, but the museum's online collection record runs it to February 14, 2027, so plan on at least the end of January. The museum describes infrastructure broadly, covering train stations, parks, basketball courts, and bridges, and its point is that the city's built environment shapes daily life and local identity.

The works in the Loeb's online collection record show which places it covers.

• André Kertész's Poughkeepsie Railroad Station, a photograph of the New York Central Railroad station
• Thomas Weeks Barrett, Jr.'s View of Poughkeepsie in 1940, a mural study showing College Hill Park, the Railroad Bridge that is now Walkway Over the Hudson, the Mid-Hudson Bridge, riverfront factories, and the 20th Century Limited train
• Barrett's "Poughkeepsie in the 1840s: Evening View"
• William Clift's View South of Blue Point From the Mid-Hudson Bridge
• Caleb Stein's Ice playing basketball with children. Market Street. Poughkeepsie, NY., which presents the Market Street court as social infrastructure

The online record notes that works on loan aren't listed there, so the gallery holds more than these five.

The show fits a Thursday night on Raymond Avenue well. You walk out of a 1938 theater that now serves dinner, into a museum showing the 1938-era city around it: the bridge, the train, the riverfront. Common Ground is about how the city's buildings and structures get reused. The Juliet is a working example a block and a half down the street.

Three other exhibitions are on view at the same time. Photo-Design: Persuasion, Critique, Fantasy runs October 3 through January 31, 2027. The End of Photography runs October 10 through February 28, 2027. Atelier 17: Myths in Motion is up through January 17, 2027.

The dates from the last market through mid-December

The market's last listed date is October 29. Arlington's next big outdoor gathering is December 5. Around it, Vassar has a run of public events within walking distance of Raymond Avenue:

1. October 30, 2 to 5 p.m.: Boos and Blooms at the Greenhouse, with Halloween activities and a costume contest. Free and open to the public.
2. October 30, 7:30 p.m.: Skylark performs Sleepy Hollow. Free and open to the public.
3. November 5 to 7: Cabaret, open to the public with reservations required.
4. November 15, 1 to 2:30 p.m.: Family Fun at the Loeb, a free drop-in art activity inspired by works on view.
5. December 5, 12 to 5 p.m.: The Arlington Holiday Festival, with the annual eggnog crawl, tree lighting, local vendors, and a parade featuring Chris Marino from Q92.
6. December 5, 7 p.m.: Vassar's Service of Lessons and Carols, free and open to the public.
7. December 13, 1 to 2:35 p.m.: Family Fun at the Loeb again, free.

December 5 is the one date that brings the whole street back together. The festival covers the afternoon, and Lessons and Carols starts at 7 p.m. That fills one Saturday from noon into the evening, with the Juliet sitting in the middle of the festival area.

How the street's calendar works now

Arlington's year has two outdoor bookends. The Arlington Business Improvement District's 26th annual Street Fair took over Raymond Avenue from Fulton and Collegeview to Davis on September 19 with more than 100 vendors. The Holiday Festival closes the season on December 5. The farmers market fills the Thursdays leading up to the end of October.

What's changed this fall is the stretch after that. A Thursday after October 29 now has two places to go. Giulia offers hosted dinner seating in the Juliet building, and the Loeb is free until 9 p.m. with an exhibition about the bridges and rail lines you cross on the way there. The Loeb's late Thursdays continue through May. Giulia's evening menu doesn't depend on the season.

Debbie Allan has watched corners like the Juliet change uses more than once since she was licensed in 1994, and she keeps track of what each change means for the blocks around it. If you live near Raymond Avenue and want to know how this fall's changes affect what your home is worth, Debra Allan can help. Request a free home valuation and get a local answer based on the street you actually live on.