It’s easy for some people, with all the challenges facing the community, to trash their hometown and even the people who are working every day to make a difference.
We see it in the comments on Daily Memphian articles and in the cesspool that social media often becomes. But in the midst of this, there are even more people whose voices are drowned out and often stay quiet in the midst of the rants and snark – people who love Memphis and would live nowhere else, people who recognize the special character of the city that has changed world culture and global business, and people who know that Memphis is worth fighting for.
For that reason, I propose that each of us take a couple of minutes every day or so to think about something that makes Memphis special and that makes lives of Memphians better.
So, today, I’ll begin. My first selection is a Memphis asset that will be celebrating its 88th birthday on September 13 – the Overton Park Shell.
Despite predictions of its demise and repeated demolition threats, it has not only survived and persevered, it has been revived into one of Memphis’s greatest pleasures.
Best of all, after being dark 19 months during COVID, it reintroduced itself as a vehicle for equity and diversity. And when I say vehicle, I mean it literally. It launched a 21-foot mobile mini-Shell stage called Shell on Wheels, which allowed arts groups to amplify their voices at schools and in neighborhoods.
Home of the Music Legends
We all know the story. The Shell was built by WPA for $11,935 in 1936 and designed by local architect Max Furbringer. Over the years, it was called the Memphis Open Air Theater, Shell Theater, or the Levitt Shell, but the history of the city’s music played out on its stage – Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, Booker T and the MGs, Isaac Hayes, Sid Selvidge, and Furry Lewis – but also national artists like Nat King Cole Trio, Frank Sinatra, The Coasters, Louis Armstrong, and many others.
Best of all, it continues to showcase Memphis bands today as a reminder that great music is not just a thing of the past. New chapters of that rich musical heritage are being written every day. Coming up in the next couple of months are concerts in the Orion Free Concerts Series by Memphis’s own Monomeon, Cyrena Wages, Healy, Aaron James, the Bar-Kays, Memphis Harvest Band, Kevin Shalum, and the North Mississippi AllStars.
See the full lineup for the next two months here.
The Shell was threatened in 1945 when the U.S. Army, which was leasing it for a bivouac area, threatened to tear it down, but it was spared when the Army moved out a year later and the Shell was restored for $4,000. In 1947, it became part of the Overton Park expansion and City of Memphis became the owner.
There were other attempts to demolish it but each time fate – and Memphians who valued it – intervened, sometimes with only days to spare before the wrecking ball. In the 1980s, City Council shut it down and looked for private management to take charge. Before the decade ended, it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places and public donations allowed for restoration.
A Broader Mission
In 2008, another large-scale renovation led to free concerts once again being held in the Shell. In 2022, this special Memphis venue became known once and for all as Overton Park Shell and adopted a mission statement aimed at outreach into underserved neighborhoods.
Today, it’s one of the only Depression-era band shells still active – a testament to its resilience in a city that refused to let it die.
A March 14, 2022, Smart City Memphis blog post, New Era for Overton Park Shell: New Mission and Taking It To The Streets, quoted the Overton Park Shell’s executive director: “The Shell was constructed for $14,000 ($282,000 today) to build positivity, unity, and trust through the arts, and coming out of the pandemic, we decided it can do that again. It’s about how can the Shell be a place of dialogue that produces hope and unity. It’s a new chapter about how equity and inclusivity is at the heart of every decision and the heart of our mission.”
So, mark your calendars for September 13 to remember what the Shell has meant to Memphis as we start a campaign for each of us to celebrate what is right about the city and what unique assets make it special.
**
Join me at the Smart City Memphis Facebook page and on Instagram where these blog posts are published along with occasional articles, reports, and commentaries that are relevant to Memphis.
