Some modest alternatives to a justice center
by Jack Neely
The Justice Center has to go somewhere, they said, as they shoved big blocks around on a map of downtown and proposed tearing down pretty buildings here or there.
It landed on the 500 block of Gay Street. It wasn't the best of the half-dozen proposed sites. It wasn't the second best. But it wasn't the worst. I agreed with many detractors that it would be a shame to lose the buildings on that block, especially the S&W and one or two of the older Victorian buildings still standing there. A couple are genuinely historic.
Still, I sometimes found myself defending the project. If these vacant buildings were to be replaced by a well-designed and thriving Justice Center that would bring more pedestrian traffic, judges and paralegals and clerks and witnesses, well, maybe it wouldn't all be for nothing.
A few weeks ago we heard that the Justice Center wasn't inevitable, after all. The good part, I thought, was that the S&W and the other buildings around it might have a second chance. Then came the proposal that we'd just tear the old buildings down, anyway. We've already gone to the trouble to get demolition permits; let's just make it a parking lot.
That proposal seems a symptom of a serious imagination deficit in county government. There are plenty of Big Box plans for downtown, but there may be some smaller steps that have more potential than some of the big expensive ones. Some of them would fit in nicely on the 500 block of Gay Street.
* The S&W as a Discovery Center. I've heard several intelligent city leaders declare, with a straight face, that Knoxville is a family-friendly sort of place. What they mean, I guess, is that we've got a good zoo. And, maybe, that West Knoxville has a lot of soccer fields well within a half-hour's minivan drive of each other. But what else? More to the point, what is there downtown that's family-friendly? An alien could arrive on the busiest downtown day and lurch down Gay Street, Market Square, and the Old City, and never suspect the existence of children on this barren planet. There's nothing for them here.
Some of our neighbors, like Charlotte and Chattanooga, have large interactive children's museums right in the business district. It seems to me that the whimsical art deco stylings of the S&W, along with whatever's left of its spiral staircase and interior balconies, might be ideal for the purpose.
* The circa 1940 Walgreen's drugstore building isn't beautiful, but it's Knoxville's closest thing to a civil-rights shrine, the site of some of the most dramatic of the sit-ins of 1960. How many of these drugstores are still standing around the country? I don't know what became of the old lunch counter itself, which I'd been told was the original. Two or three months ago, it was still there. But if it could be replaced, well, this could be a great '40s-'60s-style diner again, maybe one with a civil rights theme and a bi-racial menu.
* A Record Store. Last June, I helped entertain some of the crew of Prairie Home Companion. About 20 people were downtown for 48 hours or so, with some slack time. Assistant producer Mike Danforth wanted to browse. "Where's the best record store downtown?" he asked. In some cities, it's reasonable to assume there's more than one. I had to tell him there wasn't one within walking distance.
It seems strange to me, as it probably did to Mike, that a city that has had a distinct influence on American popular music would not have one music-oriented store downtown.
The old Mayme-McCampbell building might be the perfect place. There's a historic plaque in front. Around 1935, as WROL's studio, this three-story Victorian building hosted Roy Acuff's very first radio broadcasts, launching one of the most influential careers in recording history. Near the soon-to-be-expanded Museum of East Tennessee History, starting point for the Cradle of Country Music Walking Tour, it might be an ideal spot for a record store that also traffics in country-music souvenirs.
* Youth hostel. Most European cities have an international youth hostel downtown; many American cities do, too. Students have this tradition called "touring" where they visit towns overnight, sometimes for a week or more. They generally don't bring cars; they ride buses or bicycles, hitchhike, or just hike. From youth hostels they walk around, see historic sites, buy lunches and local beer, and souvenirs.
They can't do that here. Though Sevier County has a couple of youth hostels, Knoxville has none. Moreover, Knoxville has few other affordable alternatives, like bed-and-breakfasts, and none at all in the central part of town.
The deceptively large, well-preserved Victorian building on the north side of the S&W seems a good size and location for a hostel and/or B&B.
* The circa 1920 two-story building at 522 Gay—the Athletic House, just a few years ago—might make a fine bookstore. No one has attempted a general-interest new-book bookstore downtown in a decade or so, and we have not had a particularly good one in my memory. There is not, in fact, a single general-interest bookstore within two miles of the largest university in the state, which is, frankly, bizarre.
University or no, every downtown should have at least one bookstore. Downtown Chattanooga, a smaller city with a much-smaller university, has three. Bookstores are good for any business neighborhood because, more than nearly any other sort of store, they attract bookstore browsers, intelligent people with time to kill. Downtown Knoxville, I think, needs more of them.
Or we could just tear all these historic buildings down and build another big parking lot. It's the kind of idea that seems bright to a county commissioner.
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