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Coming Soon to an Intersection Near You
Chamique Holdsclaw's got the largest shoe deal in all of women's sports-dom, but one thing she ain't got is the "Chamique Holdsclaw Drive" street sign. Mayor Victor Ashe called a press conference to announce the street re-naming recently, and handed her a present wrapped in white paper. She opened the package and held up the standard green, oblong street sign up for all the fans at Lady Vol autograph day to admire. After listening respectfully to Ashe's speech and saying a few words of her own about how she will always consider Knoxville a second home, she took the sign over to the table where the fans were lined up awaiting her return, and sat down to get back to work with her Sharpie. Then Ashe came over, had her autograph the sign, tucked it under his arm and left Thompson-Boling Arena.
Urban Renewal of the Gourmet Kind
Attention fine-dining-aholics: a new entry in Knoxville's continental restaurant scene will be opening June 1. Owned by none other than renowned caterer David Duncan, The Jockey Club will at long last bring dining back to the L&N Station (once home to Southbound and Parisi's, among others). Duncan is restoring the original dining room of the former Louisville & Nashville Railroad station, which opened in 1905, closed in 1966, and was restored for the 1982 World's Fair. The dining room—located in the northeast corner, and once quite opulent—actually served as Ruby Tuesday's kitchen before that restaurant also closed. Duncan promises the dining room will "again be Knoxville's most elegant public dining space," serving a fixed-price six-course dinner menu that changes nightly—coat and tie required. For those who prefer more casual dining, there will also be the L&N Cafe and a banquet facility in the former waiting rooms.
Roadkill Bill Part II?
One of the more questionable legislative acts of the year slipped across Gov. Don Sundquist's desk last month. Sundquist signed a bill naming the I-140 bypass (a.k.a. Pellissippi Parkway) after the late state Sen. Carl Koella. The Carl Koella Memorial Parkway will eventually connect I-40 in Knox County with Highway 321 in Blount County. Highway 321, of course, is the road on which a van driven by Koella collided with a motorcycle in late 1996. The motorcyclist died. Koella, who said his driving was impaired by his worsening multiple sclerosis, pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of leaving the scene of a fatal accident.
I Wanna Be Like Dwight
Dwight Kessel was lunching at Chesapeake's the other day when someone came over and wanted to rub his head for luck. This was right after the news broke that Knoxville-based U.S. Internet was to become one of 17 Internet service providers (ISPs) that would make up OneMain.Com, an ISP that went public late last March, causing early backers do the happy dance.
OneMain stock was expected to bring $19 per share in its initial public offering, but opened at $38 per share. The new ISP, which boasts Bob Dole as a board member, is expected to acquire 331,800 subscribers and 663 Internet access points in 25 states, which will make it one of the top 10 U.S. independent Internet service providers.
Kessel, who left office as County Executive five years ago, has been whiling away his "retirement" by picking out cash-poor entrepreneurs with good ideas and providing them with the financial backing to get off the ground. U.S. Internet was one of those.
Now, it's not that Kessel needs the money, and he doesn't talk about it much (and in fact was not the source of this item), but certain of his friends have discovered that it's smart to keep track of what Mr. K's up to, in hopes that some of his Midas-like tendencies will rub off.
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