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Let's Gas Holston!

I really enjoyed the Jan. 12 cover story ["Tear it Down!"]. That building next to Tyson Junior High [The Inter-Agency Insurance building] is the armpit of Knoxville. I wish to commend you on your choices, but you left one out.

It is so nice to walk on the riverfront and look at the millions of dollars spent for that great view we have across from it. Of course, I am referring to the Holston Gas Co. tanks and sign. It is funny how a former state chief of economic development cannot see this eyesore. Or is he just too greedy to recognize it?

For our riverfront to develop, we must have that eyesore camouflaged. I believe he promised this to the council years ago and that wonderful Middlebrook Pike-like view is still there. Come on Bill [Baxter], get with the group and plant some trees or, better yet, erect a nice wall with a water fountain.

Douglas Clark
Knoxville

More on the Worst Buildings

Jack Neely's list of the top ten buildings in Knoxville worthy of collective enmity is instructive. Among the most telling of Neely's comments is that the Thompson-Boling Arena ought to be exempt from demolition because it is less than 25 years old. Indeed, the most vulnerable and least venerable period of a building's life in this country immediately follows its first two decades owing to, as Neely notes, "Scottish thriftiness." There is merit in permitting "new styles ...[or]...a building that's ahead of its time to prove itself."

I do not think I am going out on a limb, however, when I say that the Thompson-Boling Arena is of no discernible "style." Its design was far behind the times before they broke ground on one of the biggest beige boxes in North America. Moreover, locating this Jabba the Hutt in a tan muu muu at a primary vehicular entrance to the UT campus demonstrates the university's impoverished planning policy at the time. Were the university to relocate the arena, its parking garage, and the no less poorly sited football stadium, it would create a momentous opportunity, opening the campus on to one of the city's most beautiful features—the no-longer-strictly-natural circuitous water feature bounded by two TVA dams.

There are few great waterfronts in this country because cheaply constructed infrastructure holds priority over developing and maintaining civic amenities. Were KUB and the concrete company to find other homes, that much the better. This portion of Neyland Drive, developed into a public park, with unfettered pedestrian access to the UT campus, would be a civic space for all Tennesseans. Moreover, it would signify that the university is not just a sports and entertainment complex that offers classes and confers degrees. Renovating this crucial area would demonstrate that this community values quality of life over that which is cut-rate, fast, and whatever it takes to cram the paying public into sporting events, wrestling matches, and tractor pulls.

While I understand that Neely's proposal to remove The Inter-Agency Insurance Building in favor of the McClung Mansion is intended to improve the image of Knoxville, its efficacy hinges on a nettlesome point: it works only if the motorist does not move left or right. Turning east, the wilds of Cumberland Avenue—perhaps the ugliest main street of any college town in America—awaits the "fresh-from-the-airport" visitor. Turning west, the motorist ultimately finds the sad, sordid realty of Kingston Pike. Moreover, this intersection is not a visitor's first impression of Knoxville or its architecture. Alcoa Highway, a charmless bracelet decorated with repugnant land development, is the gateway from the south. Although the state has designated a portion of this road as "scenic," I have yet to understand how The Mouse's Ear South contributes to this status. Perhaps it is a historic strip club, or important personages may have stripped, or been stripped, there.

Others are better qualified to comment on its history than am I. It is worth noting however, that the insurance building, unlike The Mouse's Ear, has architectural qualities; they are simply different from those of the McClung Mansion. The cover photo of the January 9 Metro Pulse tells the story best. The finest cities in the world comprise buildings of different periods and aesthetic agendas standing cheek to jowl, adding to a locale's vitality.

Most provocative of Neely's suggestions is that the Marriott Hotel and the TVA buildings ought to be carted off to landfills. I too find it deeply troubling that the axis of the city's major civic space ends at a hotel. This same kind of urban planning located the tower that is the icon of the city at the bottom of an escarpment. I can only hope that The Sunsphere will be among Neely's fallen. Yet, the problem with the Marriott is more complex. The building occupying this site should be civic. While Knoxville needs more hotels for the convention center, the Marriott is in the wrong place at any time. Yet, one can envisage this building reconfigured and renovated with multiple functions, including a hotel.

As we rethink Knoxville, it is perhaps more important to consider how we inhabit our buildings rather than simply how they look. Although the TVA buildings look unfortunate, equally important is how they are used. The employees tend to inhabit them with little interaction with the city. They have their own cafeteria, their own credit union—for all I know they have their own hospital and police force. We must enact codes that prohibit large concerns from creating future insular buildings, further damaging the quality of life on our streets.

There is an opening, at this time, in this place, to create something splendid. My kvetching notwithstanding, it is time for this city to start thinking less of how we can be like Chattanooga or, God forbid, Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge, and more like the Knoxville that has yet to be. The 1950s and 60s taught us that razing buildings is easy; to raise up a challenged community is hard.

George Dodds
Assistant Professor of Architecture, UT

"Color Conscious" Needed

Metro Pulse should be applauded for taking a stand on bigotry and publishing the Color Conscious column on a regular basis. Even though nearly everyone today would like to think they are above racial bias, the fact that people still have a hard time listening to and understanding observations and evidence of continuing racism shows how far we still have to go. There are few illustrations of the need for the Color Conscious column better than the letters printed in response to it recently (Jan. 2 & 9, 2003). These letters show just how difficult it is for people to grasp the special nature of racism in our nation.

While Kevin Benko's letter made a wonderful contribution to the awareness of slavery in general, speaking of the origins of the word in the history of the Slavs, it has little to do with the column subject, the dynamics of American racism locally and nationally. American slavery wasn't called a "peculiar institution" for nothing: for the first time in history, it created artificial divisions of race, and relegated blacks to an almost sub-human status, the legacy of which is the racism we are still struggling to overcome today.

Meanwhile, Tim Ford's letter brings up anti-white racism, suggesting that it's essentially the same as anti-black racism, and accuses the author of being one-sided. This is a particularly pernicious belief that is a product of denial, and a defensive reaction that only keeps racism alive and well. There simply is no anti-white racism that can compare to the centuries-long institutionalization of anti-black racism in America, which lingers even now.

As for Brian Caraway's letter wanting us to remember the past but put it behind us, the problem is that this racist past is still with us in the present; the form it takes is more subtle, but no less malevolent. Furthermore, while personal responsibility and working together one-on-one is essential to overcoming racism, it cannot be the sole remedy for our society's racist ills, as Caraway suggests. Systemic problems require systemic cures.

As members of the board of directors of the National Conference for Community and Justice, an organization dedicated to fighting bias, bigotry, and racism in our nation, we welcome the opportunity provided by Metro Pulse to establish a very needed dialogue about the prejudice and discrimination still in existence in our midst.

Ed White
Loida C. Velázquez
Knoxville