Metro Pulse/Cover/Architecture & Design Issue

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Lofts is Lofts
And a stack of them is nearing occupancy on the 100 block of Gay Street

Three Cheers for the Sidewalk

Art as a Civic Concern
Collection adds flavor to the convention center

A tribute to these vital paths

by Adrienne Martini

If the downtown is a city's heart, then its sidewalks are its arteries. Here you will find the red and white blood cells delivering the nutrients vital to a healthy downtown, speeding on their merry way protected from injury by these concrete concourses. And to abuse a harmless metaphor even further, these arteries snake into the neighborhoods that these cells call home, where they can rest and recover from their busy day's bumping through the city's heart.

Ah, the humble sidewalk. Some argue that a modern city is fed by its roadways that deliver cars to its clogged traffic routes. While the car has its place, it is the sidewalks that give a city a human scale. Imagine a Manhattan where one must drive everywhere, where there is nothing but cars and steel and glass. Imagine a Knoxville that is only Kingston Pike, where every storefront is surrounded by an ocean of concrete. Closed into our metal boxes, we would drive everywhere and experiencing little of other people.

This is, apparently, what some folks want. Outlying sub-divisions—the white-collar estates of Gettysvue and its closer-to-the-city cousins in concept that bloom along Lyons View spring to mind—eschew the humble sidewalk, as if slapping shoe to pavement is to be shunned once you can afford one of these status palaces. The automobile is king. Any walker must be fleet of foot if he wants to avoid being crushed under its steel-belted radials. This lusty embrace of mechanized transport may simply be because a sleek number from the Lexus dealer conveys more information on the status of its driver than a high-end pair of walking shoes.

Perhaps I am being too cynical. After all, my end of my neighborhood lacks these concrete footpaths. Like Joni Mitchell says—you never do know what you've got until it's gone. The nearest sidewalk is a six-house dash from my Fairmont doorstep. But once there, one can perambulate to a couple of schools, a funky Mexican eatery, a smoky barbecue joint, or a convenience store. Without these sidewalks I would never have time to appreciate the heady perfumes wafting from a neighbor's fabulous garden, the crunch of autumn leaves under a stroller's wheels, the hypnotic rhythm of footfalls over the uneven slabs of cement, or a friendly nod from a fellow walker. Step by step is how a city and its people connect (both to it and each other) and it could never happen without sidewalks.

Sidewalks give a city its soul. While Knoxville's skyscrapers house the engines that turn our economy, the flavor of who we are lies in the spaces in between, where the flower shops and coffee houses and theaters and restaurants live. These are the places where Knoxvillians play—and we can hop from work to leisure with just a few steps, courtesy of sidewalks. My favorite walk is downtown, down Gay Street, below the snazzy refurbished lofts and in front of storefronts both empty and not. Harold's calls, sometimes, but the vacant spaces offer more opportunities to dream about what could be.

After some years out of favor, the sidewalk seems to be making a comeback. Some subdivisions sing about their sidewalks and how they help make a mere place feel like a home. The glamour of the car may be just a notch dimmer lately, as we realize that we have to know something about those we share space with. Rather than invest in a big-box solution proposed by developers who promise to save us from ourselves, perhaps we should consider investing instead in more ways for people to rub ideas with each other, as they experience the city at a slower, more thoughtful pace.

So raise a glass, should you think of it, to these arteries of daily life.