“This sure is one tough city.”
We were driving a visitor to Memphis from the airport to downtown. We hadn’t said a word about crime or public safety at all.
The comment was triggered by the Memphis obsession with razor wire.
Of course, when the Shelby County Sheriff’s Department puts up razor wire to protect the cars in its parking lot east of downtown’s ugliest building, the Criminal Justice Complex, we might as well add a sign out front: “This is one tough town.”
Then there is the razor wire protecting an entirely empty lot on Union Avenue west of Danny Thomas Boulevard. When a property owner has to protect a bare lot to keep it from being stolen, you know things are tough.
We kept our guest away from Hollywood and Poplar, where razor wire protects the concrete statues at Rachel’s Flower. We thought if he saw that, he might ask to be taken immediately back to the airport.
The comment about Memphis being “one tough city” was about the intuitive city, which is what we call the gut feeling that you have about a city before you’ve even learned anything about it.
We think of knowing how cool Austin was going to be before we got out of its airport with the Texas retail kiosks selling Texas products and the Austin-related public art. We knew it from Portland as we walked to our hotel and stepped over manhole covers designed by various artists.
In other words, before we are consciously forming an opinion, we are already deciding that this is a city that “gets it.”
We’ve written often about the need for a serious design ethos in Memphis, but it would be progress if we could work on getting the intuitive city right.
To that end, here are some pertinent comments made about yesterday’s photo and post about city government’s plywood answer to a broken grate on Main Street.
John said:
“Can I ask a personal favor of one of the contractors who have been awarded sewer work this year… Can you just do us a favor and make a civic jesture by figuring out how to get the fountains back on? I’ll find a 501c3 for you to invoice and we’ll write it off as a tax deductible contribution. It’s 100 freakin degrees and sunny, the civic center fountain should be on.
“Can I ask a personal favor of one of the contractors who have been awarded curb & road work this year… Can you just do us a favor and make civic jesture by figuring out how to replace the mall pavers with something other than plywood? I’ll find a 501c3 for you to invoice and we’ll write it off as a tax deductible contribution. It’s tourist season and the main downtown thoroughfare shouldn’t look like ass.
“Downtown should be a high concentration tax revenue generator, the global identity for our region and the target for future development opportunity. If our government isn’t going to care, I’d hope our corporate community would. At least the ones getting a little business from government work?”
Urbanut said:
“I’ve been watching the spot shown in the photo slowly grow over the course of the summer. Several mornings have included a work crew of 3 to 4 individuals. Perhaps the nature of the problem is still eluding them after these many months just as the nature of the demolition work on Madison seems to be beyond the ability of that particular owner/contractor.”
John said:
“Perhaps we could borrow the golf tourney’s old scoreboard and put it up across Madison. We could keep a running total of how many months/weeks/days that segment of road is closed. We could calculate the interest payments on that $2 million section of trolley and regularly update that. Or we could rank all of the dumb obvious improvement projects that should be priorities.
“Closed Trolley — 6 over par
Mall Maintenance — 5 over par
Hickman Building “Temporary” Fence — 4 over par
1st Tenn. Bank Barbed Wire Prison Parking Across From Elementary School — 3 over par
City Hall HVAC Plaza Installation — 2 over par
Civic Center Fountain — 1 over par
Concrete Block Peabody Place Garage Façade — Even par
Convention Center Sidewalk Chain.
“Maybe if we celebrate our faults, we will grow to love them!”
Smart City Memphis said:
“I propose that we begin a photographic project on key design and repair issues, particularly downtown, and see if we can get some attention to the need for some standards of quality and reasonable action. We can take photos over time to document problems and to track actions to fix them.”
Abandoned was one of the first thoughts that came to mind when we moved here back in 06′. Then we travled to St. Louis and saw what abandoned really looked like. Improving but stagnant is how I see Downtown now.
Has anyone noticed the Memphis home of the
blues & Birthplace of Rock & Roll sign on top of the concrete silo lately? Half the letter are burnt out. At night coming into Memphis across the Hernando Desoto bridge,
you have to be embarrassed if you love this City. If they are not going to keep it maintained they need to turn it off completely.
I’m getting my camera ready. This is a fun and useful idea. Much of this is innexcusable. I think we need an entire thread on Private Properties that are unexceptable embarassments. I think this was spawned primarily about the mutually owned public space issues.
BUT, there is always a but… we are going to have to admit that one reason for the public neglect is the lack of funding to maintain the stuff we keep building. Many of us have made the argument that we perhaps should not build anything new if we can’t maintain what we have (me).
Some of us have also recently advocated for completing new projects like Beale Street Landing with no guarantees that we will take care of it anybetter than anything else (uh, hypocritically me too).
If we are going to crusade for the flaws, we may also have to make a stand against some new things that we really want too?
Surely you have to be a true newcomer or a very naive resident, not to know the fact that if someone responsible really cared about this sort of stuff, then it would not exist in the first place !
This sort of obvious negligence and backwardness has existed and flourished since the 1980s.
It’s Memphis TN not some cutting edge, progressive, urban mecca. It’s a shame but that’s what makes people develop extremely negative personal opinions about the region. Newcomers sometimes really see and understand more than what the good ole boy locals want to admit, and they really do understand substance behind bravado, false pride, pretense. and bs
Television shows such as Memphis Beat don’t help as well.
Memphis seems forever tethered to intransigence, an image of pervasive crime, racism, and political incompetence.
A casual visitor, or transplant can detect this stuff even without visiting the City for himself. After visiting, the visitor may change his perceptions a bit, but transplants always display deep misgivings…very much unlike transplants display moving to many other US cities- including some other southern cities.
In many cases, the visitors’ and transplants’ comments, and empirical observations have a great deal of merit. Sadly, some of their procalmations and expressed views are met by locals with criticism, rebuke, and a strange brand of denial or disbelief.
It’s like a parrot with this one.
In other news-
Work crew was back on Main Street today involved with “something” at the Court Square trench. I forgot my camera or a picture would be forthcoming. Perhaps we will see progress in the coming days or weeks… or decades.
“In many cases, the visitors’ and transplants’ comments, and empirical observations have a great deal of merit. Sadly, some of their procalmations and expressed views are met by locals with criticism, rebuke, and a strange brand of denial or disbelief.”
If you knew as much about this city as you claim, you’d know that long-time and native Memphians are usually the city’s harshest critics. But admitting that would mean the loss of most of your chronic rant.
Urbanut:
Thanks for keeping us posted on any developments. Today, we counted between Gayoso and Union Avenue, 13 plywood repairs on Main Street. Unbelievable.
Maybe the “trench” can be the start of something.
SCM:
Where and how should we look to post this information, both photos and text?
Urbanut: Email them both to tjones@smartcityconsulting.com and we’ll post them. We want to make this as easy on everybody as possible.