Detail from a Sinkhole

You've probably heard the good news about Amtrak service being restored to Central Station in Memphis after the sinkhole almost swallowed it.

When I saw the repair last Saturday, I noticed a little more good news.

When they rebuilt the retaining wall for the tracks, they detailed it the same way as the existing wall.

This is the wall as it's been for decades.

This is the new part of the wall, on the right, after the repairs.

They've replicated the detail, the planes and bands, of the original. Perhaps it was structurally necessary, but I doubt it. Since Memphis has had little respect for its public works architecture over the last few decades, seeing a detail as simple as this is a pleasure, and maybe a hope.

Thanks to everyone involved for getting rail service going again, and for respecting a simple, subtle detail.

Details texture Memphis.

The Turnaround

Here's a couple checking out South Main last weekend.



A few feet later, the couple stopped, and turned around. They began walking back the way they came, towards Main and Calhoun.

My theory: they hit a walkability barrier. They came to the place where a street's enticements, human, visual, aural, etc., weren't strong enough for casual amblers to continue ambling. On a Saturday morning, there aren't many people on South Main above Butler, unless a special event is going on. So they turned around, right about here.

I'd think tracking, timing and interviewing turnarounds like this would be invaluable if you want to improve the street life of a neighborhood. And while looking for turnarounds, you can walk it yourself, opening yourself to the experience as a newcomer.

If you're wondering why I was stalking a couple with crappy photography, I was trying to get a picture for Sustainable Shelby.

Sculpture Garden on South Main

I love the sculpture garden that sprouted in the past week at South Main and Talbot.



It's a happy visual surprise.









I love the art and I love its setting, in a corner lot that's neither hyper-manicured nor abandoned. It has a beautiful old Tulip Poplar on the Talbot side, and bushes and small trees on the non-Main sides, to give it definition. The setting feels organically Memphis.



Congratulations to the students who put it together. They have added real economic value to South Main. The value should come back to them.

Building Up

There's a matte shot in Scorcese's "The Age of Innocence" that has always blown me away. It's a sudden, unexpected shot of a single mansion, standing alone on a corner in the undeveloped grid of what will be upper Manhattan, waiting for the rest of urban New York to catch up. It's a vanguard for the built changes coming to New York. It's a stunning, exciting image.

I was similarly stunned by 2 new buildings in Memphis when I first saw them:

The Rivercrest

and the Stratum on Highland.

Suddenly appearing on corners where parking lots and underurban developments had been for years, they're exciting vanguards for Memphis' under-developed grid. They've done it by:

• building over 2 stories
  
  AND
  


• building to the sidewalk, that is, Hell no! to parking lots and mega-berms.
  
  AND
  


• building residences on a mostly commercial street, that is, mixed-use.
  
  AND
  


• building on the corner, that is, magnifying their power.
  
  AND
  
  
• building on a spot that was either under- or unused before, that is, infill.
  

The Rivercrest is not so radical for a building in the South Main district, but it immediately changed the way I experienced the corner of Front and Pontotoc. Probably because it filled a corner which was long a surface parking lot. Plus it has a great staggered roof texturing its skyline.



So filling the space next to Gus' Fried Chicken on Front Street is all gravy.



Mixed-use combo.

The Stratum on Highland (which I've posted about before) not only transformed the corner it's on, it's close to physically transforming the street. It's made Highland Strip a more urban space as well as a mix-used environment by adding residences to the street.



And they've done it in an area where they could have easily gotten by with the same old berm/parking lot style development. Far as I'm concerned, the Stratum is THE model for healthy physical changes in the University district. Good design, good use of space.

Will development catch up with them? In a hundred years we won't be as dense as New York, but a Memphis-scaled* density could be so much greater than what we have now. But the Stratum and Rivercrest are very much the exception now.

*by building not much higher than Memphis' great oaks, we could still have 5 to 6 stories of new development that wouldn't dwarf neighborhoods.

Chalk Architecture Saturday

Downtown Chalk Art Festival
all kids, adults & families welcome!

Saturday, September 6, 2008
rain date Saturday, September 20
9:30 am- 12:30 pm

Memphis Farmers Market 545 South Main Street (just west of Central Station)

New award categories! "Most Original", "Best Replica", and the "Professional Artist" and "Architecture Firm" division awards in addition to "Youth", "Team" and "Adult"
All supplies provided AND great prizes from the Art Center and Saint Francis Hospital given!

Register in advance to enter the competition, or just stop by and enjoy the other festival activities and select your "Best of Show". So make your grocery list and visit us at the market!

Several activities are on hand at no cost for kids and adults including a free style chalk area, "Balloon Man Mike", face painting, "Draw Dog" from the Art Center, and live music. Due to the generous support of our returning partners Saint Francis Hospital and the Art Center, this event continues to be free to all those who participate. Chalk provided for all pre-registered participants in the competition. Great prizes awarded in all categories.

To register and get more information go to www.aiamemphis.org or call 901.525.3818.

Memphis Retooled

I've been watching the Machine Shop re/development for the past year and a half.

They took a simple commercial facade, located in a crook of South Main, as a frontend



and built a new development into the backend.





A nice combo by John Pruett Architects of traditional and modern, each giving value and texture to the other. My only complaint: I wish they had kept the previous paint job, including the commercial painted sign, to help the original facade pop out more.

Here's another facade, of much greater value, hopefully awaiting its own retooling.


This shouldn't be a South Main thing. The benefits of reuse, reimagination, remix are tangible, visual.

Farmers Market on Front

Downtown's Memphis Farmers Market has been such a big success for downtown, I wonder if you could build on it, literally.

Presently MFM's great energy is bottled up behind the parking lot that surrounds it.


But if you moved the bus shelter to the west, about 50 feet,


so that it was flush with Front Street,


the Farmers Market could really energize Front. All without parking loss.

And with a more visible MFM home and energetic Front Street, perhaps MFM could expand its operations, slowly making it a persistent market and an incubating showcase for fledgling retail entrepeneurs. And to give it an even more permanent presence, you could build a corner office which could be a demo space for the entrepeneurs, a coffee house for the colder months, administrative offices, and an architectural advertisement for the Market.

Just thinking how Memphis can connect social energy and urban space to make more of both.

Music and Protest May 3rd

At 2:00 p.m. Saturday May 3, Dan Montgomery (singer/songwriter), Antique Curtains (punk), Giant Bear (roots rock), and The Third Man (post-rock) will all take part in a free outdoor music event near the grounds of the National Civil Rights Museum in downtown Memphis to commemorate the fifth anniversary of George W. Bush's "Mission Accomplished" event on the USS Abraham Lincoln.

Each band will be mixing their own original material--including some songs written specifically for this occasion!--with "classic" protest songs (Dylan, Guthrie, Seeger, even some Springsteen, et al.)

The event is be co-promoted by our friends at the Midsouth Peace and Justice Center (midsouthpeace.org.) This event is FREE and open to the public, so please join us.

Memphis Events in April

Here are some Memphis events you might enjoy this month:

Thursday, April 3: Sierra Club First Thursday Meetup at Otherlands. The Sierra Club also keeps a calendar and RSS feed of environmental events and alerts.

Thursday, April 3: Cooper-Young First Thursday Night Out. This is not just taking place at the corner of Cooper and Young. Many of the participating businesses are on Central. I hope this will become a huge monthly event.

Since they happen on the same night in the same neighborhood, you can go to the Sierra Club meetup first, then walk over to the Cooper-Young events (a block and a half away). Foot-powered connections are always the best.

Friday, April 4th - Sunday, April 6th: Dream Reborn Conference by Green For All organization. The conference is actually sold out, but there may still be a chance to volunteer.

Saturday, April 5: Old Forest Hike, led by the very active activists of Citizens to Protect Overton Park.

Friday, April 11th: a screening of Third Ward TX, a film about community building and art building in Houston. Details.

Saturday, April 12th: April Rock n' Romp.

Saturday April 19th: Old Forest Hike, led by the activists of Citizens to Protect Overton Park.

Saturday, April 19th: Wolf River Harbor Earth Day Cleanup, on the Memphis Riverfront, led by the Sierra Club.

Friday, April 25th: The Second Memphis Zombie Walk which starts on Beale Street and limps toward South Main's Last Friday Trolley Night.

Learning from Carnies

Lessons from the Mid-South Fair and Cooper-Young Festival about creating energy in permanent places:

• Not just walkable -- walk required.

• Strong and fun visuals, coming from everything and everywhere.


• Strong and pleasant smells coming from restaurants and vendors.


• Use variety.

• People variety.


• Cost variety.


• Loss leaders -- something you can do and see without spending money or lots of it.

• Lots of kids stuff, including animals, playgrounds, art, spaces, etc. Doesn't mean you can't have "adult" stuff, but kids should be encouraged.


• Lots of micro-to-small structures and spaces.


• Lots of micro-to-small businesses.


• Closeness of people.

• Fun.

• Lighting that encourages fun.


• Anything that encourages all of the above.

Lessons to avoid:

• People drive from all over Memphis to support the Fair and Festivals. A permanent place cannot consistently depend on people coming from all over the metropolitan area to support its energy. I just don't think you can sustain that drive-up market permanently (see Overton Square).
  


• Depending on a wider, drive-up market will create parking pressures and attendant mindsets, which will undo the places (see Overton Square).

How do you create energy without requiring half that half the city drive up?

1. start with a small place. Make it smaller if possible.


2. Encourage a density of activity, and expand from there.


3. have many festivals and interlocking events per year. Think of ways to make a separate event part of the larger community. With interlocking events, the participants should walk, walk, walk! The more walking connections created between events in your neighborhood the more energy and the more people will want to live in your neighborhood. Which will help...
   

4. encourage greater residential density and variety, immediately around the neighborhood commercial centers, especially in the empty lots. Memphis has lots and lots of empty lots. You won't get density and closeness if you tear down standing structures and leave empty space.

The Jewels of Memphis: Hotel Chisca

This is the fourth and final installment of a conversation I had with June West, Executive Director of Memphis Heritage about the 4 great and threatened buildings of Memphis: the Sterick Building, the Sears Crosstown Building, the Tennessee Brewery and the Chisca Hotel. I've split the conversation into 4 parts for each building in the order above, the reverse order of the apparent threat. Which means, the Chisca Hotel, where in 1954 the voice of Elvis Presley first met radio waves, is in danger.

GoM: I would think of all the buildings [4 Jewels of Memphis, the Sterick Building, The Sears Crosstown, the Tennessee Brewery, the Chisca], the Chisca would be the most at risk.

JW: Right now it is. I got the name of the developer who is working with COGIC [the owner of the Chisca] and actually phoned him several weeks ago. He answered the phone and I was glad he would speak with me. I introduced myself and told him of my concern for the Chisca .

To back up, one of the things I'm realizing, and it's hard when you're a one-person band, how important it is to be pro-active about a building, about your concern for a building, rather than when it's in imminent danger, when the wrecking ball is coming next week. It's our responsibility to be as pro-active as we can.

So it's important to call people, and try and work with developers ahead of time -- to say "we're concerned about this building" or "we're here to help you" vs. "we're here to fight you". We want to make this a win-win situation for as many groups as possible.

What came to mind was, when we met about the [Tennessee] Brewery, after we had gone through all the battles downtown, the developer's representative from Franklin, Tennessee came and met with us, and some of the property owners on Tennessee Street, as well as the developer's spokesperson, Brenda Solomito. We met here at Memphis Heritage. He said " I wish I had come to meet with you 6 months ago. " We wished the same. So that pretty much set in my mind that, if at all possible, we should talk to the people working with these properties before it gets to the point where we see a plan and know that it's going to be a problem.

With the Chisca, about a year and a half ago, maybe 2 years, we saw the original plans. Keep in mind that the Chisca has gone through a myriad of projected redevelopment plans that never came to fruition, with COGIC as well as some other partner they've hooked up with.

In this newest plan, this developer has taken the major step of developing a Hilton Garden Inn in the parking area to the east of the Chisca. When they first submitted the site plans they showed the existing Chisca and the Hilton side by side and part of the old Chisca was gone. That's what caused us in to be on the defensive -- to say, "wait a minute!" They had moved the development to the east with no verbal or written documentation for what their plans were for the Chisca.

My concern is that once they start construction on the Hilton Garden Inn, drilling the pilings and other supports, the construction of the new building might create cracks in the foundation, etc. And they'll say, "oh my goodness, it's made the old Chisca unstable/unsafe!" And then they'll go, "oh woe is us! We're going to have to tear it down!" So I want to get the word out ahead of time -- hey wait a minute, you don't have to do it that way. You can protect this building.

The same sort of issues happened when they planned for the building of the FedEx Forum. There was great fear that construction on the Forum would put First Baptist Beale Church as well as Clayborn Temple and St. Patrick -- the nearby historic churches -- in danger . So obviously I think we need to be cautious and concerned, and be wary in watching that development.

So when I spoke to the developer I asked him what his plans are for the Historic Chisca Hotel. He stated to me that they do not have any plans for the Chisca Hotel.

I was not confrontational. I really wanted to get to know him. We had a good conversation and I just said that I wanted him to be aware that we're concerned about the future of the building. And we would be more than willing to work with him and COGIC on any future plans.

If they ask for demolition, it will have to go before Landmarks Commission. More than likely it would get disapproved for demolition. Then they could go before the City Council and appeal landmarks decision. My concern is that right now, for development reasons, they would let them tear it down.

I think the ideal situation for that Hotel is a restoration, much like the Claridge House did or like the Wm Len. Quite frankly I think it would be great for it to be a historic hotel .

I use this concept lately -- I say " if you had friends coming to Memphis, where would you want them to stay, if you had any choice?" The answer is, The Peabody or the Madison. Where are they? They're both in historic properties. The issue is, if you build the right type of space in a historic property, you can command a higher room rate as well. And that being the gateway, in my mind, to South Main Historic District , to have a new structure built there vs. restoring the Chisca would be a tremendous mistake, a tremendous mistake. When South Main curves there, the Chisca is the main thing you see when you're standing at Peabody Place, when you look south you see that building. To have something like that go away would be devastating.

GoM: Beyond the economic value, it has emotional value with the Elvis Presley fans.

JW: Yes, they are on notice. I've been in touch with staff of Elvis Presley Enterprises on several occasions. But we don't want to cry wolf because the developers haven't committed to demolishing the building. In my heart of hearts, I think that's what they (and COGIC) want to do. But they haven't literally said that, so until they actually move in that direction, my goal is to convince them that it's much more effective to restore the Chisca vs. tearing it down.

I'm trying to think the positive vs. the negative but that could play a huge role in this.

GoM: What the physical state of the building right now?

JW: You hear about the problems of redevelopment, the cost of the asbestos removal, the cost of the restructuring for earthquakes , and all that -- that's a very sound building, a very sound building.

They've created much safer ways to do asbestos abatement, and there are even ways of covering up where it's not as costly to take it out.

GoM: When did they start using asbestos?

JW: The 1920's.

Trolley through the River Arts Fest

I'm glad that the Trolley will keep operating during, and right through the middle of, the Fest.

Next year they could put art on the Trolley. Maybe they're doing it this year.

What kind of art could you put on the trolleys? What immediately comes to mind is print advertising, but I don't remember if trolleys have advertising frames, like buses. Also, they could show family-safe digital art in trolley-modded flat panels.

The Riches of Cooper-Young: Cause 1

The fewer boundaries there are that separate citizens, the better, because creativity thrives when people encounter one another from different parts of society...

Steven J. Tepper,
on the conditions under which creativity flourishes,
on Smart City Radio

Variety of housing cost is part of the reason Cooper-Young has become a viral, creative, rich Memphis neighborhood. It trends towards Memphis affordable. It blends socially and economically with nearby neighborhoods. No one is out of place in Cooper-Young.


And part of the reason that South Main is not-so-vital is its lack of that variety. (One suggested solution.)

International Design Contest: Hotel Chisca

This post is my entry, my suggestion, and could be Memphis' answer (or part thereof):

Transform the beautiful, historic Hotel Chisca into subsidized artist apartments and hostel, and let the artists DIY (Design It Yourself).

This is not your standard rehab. The only contracted work done will be infrastructural -- modernizing the plumbing and HVAC, making sure any structural and safety problems are corrected. The rest is done by the artist residents. The public areas -- hallways, lobbies, etc... -- will be designed by the artists (over the undersight of a resident democratically elected committee). The interiors of the apartments will also be tabula rasa, with no new amenities except for the bare minimum -- stove and refrigerator. By keeping its wrinkles, the Chisca will make an asymetrically perfect match for that other great South Main bookend -- Earnestine and Hazel's.

A percentage of the building will be reserved as hostel for artists touring through Memphis. The weird motel area on the side might be a good place for the hostel, as long as everyone comes and goes through the same entrances. The mix of local and non-local is very important. Perhaps the hostel could be renovated by residents in exchange for further subsidies.

The only non-subsidized parts of the complex will be the Red Hot and Blue Skyway, on the roof, and The Ghetto Palms Bar, on Main Street where the pool was (will be?). This bar will be shaded by boxed Ailanthus -- the Trees of Heaven -- transplanted from the open graves of Memphis' tragic demolitions.

The development would have to be owned and operated by a non-profit foundation, because the temptation would be too great for a private developer to boot the artists once they've enlivened the area.

A question: how would someone identify themselves or be identified as an artist?

Anyway, here's an example, the Hotel Virreyes in Mexico City.

It would make South Main Arts District more its namesake and less a beautiful real estate scheme. And it would give our low-cost, high-energy creativity a home. Anyone who witnessed the Memphis Zombie Walk knows the power of that creativity.