Downtown Modesto runs along Tenth and Eleventh Streets and is the historic core of the city: red-brick warehouse buildings from the late 19th century, Spanish-revival civic buildings from the New Deal era, and the streets George Lucas cruised as a teenager in the late 1950s. It is compact enough to cover on foot in an afternoon.
The main draws are the Modesto Arch, the Gallo Center for the Arts, the State Theatre, and the El Viejo Post Office. The Tenth Street Plaza area has the densest concentration of restaurants and bars. The downtown Modesto certified farmers' market runs on Saturday mornings in the warm half of the year.