Summer Solstice in Blackstone Square

The smell of freshly-cut grass, sunshine, mellow music and happy neighbors filled Blackstone Square on Thursday, June 21 at the sixth annual Summer Solstice.

Sponsored by Washington Gateway Main Street (WGMS) with partners Blackstone/Franklin Square Neighborhood Association IB/FSNA), Lord Hobo Brewing Company, Make Music Boston, Boston Parks and Recreation Department and Boston Main Streets, this year's festival celebrating the arrival of summer and the longest day of the year featured laid-back jazz by the Tyson Jackson Trio and lively country and bluegrass music by the Savin Hillbillies featuring South End Community Health Center CEO and multi-instrumentalist Bill Walczak on guitar, accordion and vocals.

Woburn-based Lord Hobo provided libations at the beer garden on West Brookline Street, while Daddy's Bonetown Burgers and Dylan and Pete's ice cream offered picnic fare.

A group of grown-ups got fit at an exercise in the Washington Street quadrant of the square at a pop-up fitness class led by barre3 and Endurance PIlates and Yoga, while elsewhere, children frolicked in the fountain with inflatable floats, bounced and rolled across the grass in large, inflatable balls and expressed themselves with sidewalk chalk.

WGMS interim executive director Liza Quiñonez estimated attendance at about 500. "This is my favorite event of the year!" WGMS vice-president Arthur "Bud" Larievy said as he and his husband, Milton Vázquez, surveyed the crowd and the medley of activities taking place in the square.