The Children's Page, 1925

I found this drawing on The Children's Page of the August 2, 1925 Commercial Appeal. If this is the Eudora Welty, she would have been 16 at the time.

A weird coming together of the native talent and inbred evil of the South.

I'd been looking for a Commercial Appeal editorial putdown of H.L. Mencken (remembered by Richard Wright), which was probably a response to a Mencken putdown of William Jennings Bryan which was probably a response to a Bryan putdown of Charles Darwin. I'm still looking for the editorial.

Thank You Thurgood!

40 years ago today, the Supreme Court handed down its landmark ruling on Citizens to Preserve Overton Park v. Volpe.

The ruling spared Overton Park and saved Memphis.

What I wrote 5 years ago.

Start Defacing our Economic Advantage

During his 12 Suggestions talk last year, Jeff Speck made his audience gasp when he showed that Memphis had replaced the Masonic Lodge

with the Blake Building.

On Halloween I had a few minutes to ponder this very weird replacement while I waited for a bus on Second Street.

I pondered the Blake Building's rigid box form, the panels and ornamental grills aggresively enforcing opaque 2-dimensional facades,

the strangely placed fire panels,


the structure on top of the box.

Standing there, bored and a little liquored up, I wondered: is it possible that the original building is still there, hidden under a goofy modernist facade?

Then last week, I had the honor of talking with Keith Kays, the architect leading the charge for the protection and appreciation of Memphis' great modernist buildings. I mentioned the goofy building at 2nd and Madison and he said, "you know, the original building is under all the panels"

Wow! It is still there. Very, very exciting.

Except ... it isn't. The hidden building isn't the Masonic Lodge, the Victorian in the photo at the top. Unfortunately that really is gone. Speck's liner notes,

note that it was demolished in the early 20th century and replaced with the Germania Building that is now presumed hidden at 2nd and Madison. While I don't know what the Germania Building look/s/ed like, I do assume that a structure built on a prominent downtown corner in the early 1900s is probably still pretty beautiful.

Conceivably Memphis could have 2 good outcomes from this.

1. By removing the panels and grillwork, we can daylight the early 20th century Germania Building underneath
   
   
2. By re-forming the freed groovy modernist panels and grills in a more porous manner somewhere else on our streets, we can create urban space where there's only urban void now.
   

I'm hoping to get closer soon and see if I can get pictures, from inside or out, of the hidden building.

It's Both, Alcaeus

Carved into marble and just a few feet from being a literal cornerstone of Memphis City Hall.

Random Thoughts Relating to the Pyramid

• While it's not my dream use, the Bass Pro development is a use that is a re-use, and that is good. At the very worst, Bass Pro will be a placeholder for great future uses that will happen if we don't do something stupid in the meantime.


• Some people think that demolition is to Memphis as magic beans were to Jack. In fact, demolition is to Memphis as the Luftwaffe was to Guernica.


• The Pyramid is a monument that we've been afraid to treat as a monument. Consequently, we've confused the means -- an arena -- with the end -- a monument. So confused, we think it has no use if it's not an arena.
  
  Thinking about it as a monument -- have we ever tried giving it to the National Park Service?
  


• Many people have noted the recent article about the Pyramid in the New York Times. Dan Barry's biblicalesque narrative of wandering in the Memphis desert captures well our local variants of the sacred and the profane -- the pompous and the goofy. Plus he called the Pyramid "glorious."


• From another NYT article:
  

  After a century of flirting with its version of the Great Pyramid of Cheops along the Nile at the ancient Egyptian capital of Memphis, pyramid power is coming to the home of Beale Street blues and Elvis Presley.
  
  The structure, which is expected to take two years to complete, is designed as a homage to the Egyptian namesake of Memphis and an eccentric coming-of-age monument.

  Forget coming-of-age, remember eccentric.


• The Pyramid is to monumental architecture as the Jungle Room is to interior decorating.


• The Pyramid was an acquired taste for me.


• The Pyramid is an ironic mullet. The world's largest ironic mullet.

Previous random thoughts on the Pyramid.

Flood Level at the Foot of Beale

I noticed the flood gauge at the foot of Beale Street for the first time this summer.


I've been wondering whether the River ever touched it.

And the answer is: only once, in February 1937, when the Mississippi crested at 48.7 ft.


The next closest crest was 45.80 ft on 04/23/1927.

In selecting where the City stopped and the River began, Memphis chose wisely.

Race and Economics Forum

The third forum in the New Path/Memphis Urban League 2008 Race Relations & Memphis panel series will be held next Wednesday May 21, 2008 from 6pm-8pm at the Ben Hooks Central Library in Meeting Room C. The topic of the discussion is Race & Economics and will feature panelists Dr. Jerome Blakemore, Dr. Dale Bails, and Roby Williams. Daphene McFerren will moderate.

Thanks, I look forward to seeing you there!

Tarrin McGhee

Program Director, New Path

tarrin@newpathmemphis.org

www.newpathmemphis.org

Try to attend this forum, which was preceded by Race and Politics and Race and Media.

Tours of Memphis Landmarks

Then on Sunday, May 18th there will be a tour of the mansion known as Annesdale, in Annesdale-Snowden neighborhood. Tickets are $10 which you can purchase at Mr. Lincoln's Costume Shop in Overton Square.

Race and Media Forum Tuesday Night

The first forum, Race and Politics, was great. Attend if you can (I'm going to the Peabody Family Art Night, so I probably can't).

While you're at the library, you can also view and vote on the Shelby Farms Park designs.

Notes from Race and Politics Forum

Some notes from memory of the excellent forum last Saturday at the National Civil Rights Museum. This is by no means a summary of what was said, only what stuck with me.

Marcus Pohlmann: 3 watersheds in Memphis' racial progress in politics: the Freedmen's Bureaus, the Yellow Fever, and rulings by the Federal Courts in the 1970s. Memphis has made progress since 1991 but has recently plateaued.

Randolph Meade Walker: The Crump machine is still in place, including an oligarchy. Education, discouraged by Memphis and Southern leaders until very recently, is key to change. Also we must deal with institutional racism -- lack of banks, restaurants, etc., in African-American majority communities.

Sidney Chism: we must learn to appreciate cultural differences. We had several good candidates for Mayor during the last election, but the media made it into a racial thing.

David Cocke: politicians will use race if it benefits them. We must encourage more cross-over politicians to help neutralize this.

Desi Franklin: we have an oligarcy. We must reach out as individuals to people of different cultures. A book that's influenced her. Also quoted dire statistics (and hopeful goals) about African-American economic wealth and power from the MemphisED report.

Again, from memory.

Thanks and congratulations to the Memphis Urban League and New Path and moderator Darryl Tukufu for an interesting, honest and possibly historic conversation. They are planning on having more forums on "Race and ..." and are also planning citywide study circles to continue the conversation.

Zippin Pippin Listed on National Register

I received word from Denise Parkinson that the Zippin Pippin has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places. What does this mean?

• Listing in the National Register honors the property by recognizing its importance to its community, State, or the Nation.
• Private property owners can do anything they wish with their property, provided that no Federal license, permit, or funding is involved.
• Owners have no obligation to open their properties to the public, to restore them, or even to maintain them, if they choose not to do so.
• Federal agencies whose projects affect a listed property must give the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation an opportunity to comment on the project and its effects on the property.
• Owners of listed properties may be able to obtain Federal historic preservation funding, when funds are available. In addition, Federal investment tax credits for rehabilitation and other provisions may apply.
  

[emphasis mine].

Many congratulations and thanks to Judith Johnson, Denise, Steve Mulroy and the Save Libertyland crew for this great work.

Mojo, Photo, Rummage, Resolve

• At Jon W. Sparks memphis.cool.movie, Mike McCarthy makes a request.
  

  I need about 25 folks to arrive at the BACKBEAT TOURS kiosk at Blues City Cafe (2nd and Beale) across from BB Kings on Thursday November 8th for a 2:00 PM photo shoot.

• Ryan Jones of My Midtown Memphis is looking for high-quality vintage photographs of Memphis.


• The Rozelle Artist Guild (aka the Rozelle House) is having a rummage and art sale.
  

  The Rozelle Rummage & Art Sale is a community-wide yard sale and miniature Cooper-Young fest taking place in the Rozelle-Annesdale Park on Saturday, November 10th from 7AM to 3PM.

  More details at Lantana Projects and the Artist Guild's website.
• Live From Memphis has announced the theme for their next Li'l Film Fest: Resolutions. Deadline for entry: December 3, 2007.
  
  I resolve to make a movie. I resolve to finish the ones I've already started.

All Hallows Eve: Ghosts on the Rocks

The cobblestones are rocks. No one can deny it. As surely as Graceland is stone, mortar, wood, paint, water, mud and trace amounts of peanut butter and banana, the cobblestones are rocks.

The boys back at the lab won't find anything but rock. Nothing close to the pride of Memphis' founding and commercial ascent, the shame of its brutality and moral decline, the history of its early connection to the River and its lost connection during its dystopic flight eastward. It won't find the ghosts of man, mule and machine that have wandered down to the River's edge and back up to Memphis, or an imagination that conjures those spirits.

Rocks.

Happy Hallowe'en. Be safe, befriend the intangible, beware Dickey Drakeller.

From the pages of the Memphis Press-Scimitar

Feeling nostalgic for the good old days? Nothing like a random trip through the local newspaper archives to make you wanna bury that nostalgia in a shallow grave.

But it's still fun. I've attached a couple of things I found during some research. Both are from 1937.