 |
 |
Best and Brightest
A breakfast at the University Club Tuesday morning for the Howard Baker Center of Public Policy drew a wide variety of Knoxville’s best and brightest, from former UT president Ed Boling to architects Bruce and Doug McCarty. Most came chiefly to hear remarks by Pulitzer-winning journalist and best-selling author David Halberstam, who had spoken to an audience of 225 at the University Center the night before. Halberstam reminisced about his days as a reporter for the Nashville Tennessean in the late ‘50s and early ‘60s, and made a few pointed remarks about the deficit, religion in politics, and celebrity journalists, all of which he’s skeptical about. He sounded nostalgic for the straighter-shooting media as it was pre-cable and pre-Internet.
Halberstam, one of the first reporters to warn of the Vietnam debacle, assessed the invasion of Iraq as a “horrendous miscalculation”—not necessarily the original military victories, he says, but the idea that the U.S. soldiers would be welcomed as liberators.
“We’re punching our hand into the largest hornet’s nest in the world,” he said. Furthermore, he added, “I’m afraid we’re going to end up, tragically, doing bin Laden’s recruiting for him.”
He also remarked that the profession of journalism tends to attract eccentrics because it requires “a certain kind of talent and long hours and pays almost nothing.”
Playing Musical Banks
Jim Clayton, the manufactured housing mogul, is looking to get back into the banking business in Knoxville by opening a First State Bank office downtown. First State, based in Clayton’s native soil of Henderson County in West Tennessee, is principally owned by Clayton. It will move into the building formerly occupied by Bank of Knoxville, then BankFirst, then BB&T, at the corner of Market Street and Church Avenue. Clayton re-acquired the building with a partner, John Trotter, last fall, after BB&T moved to Gay Street’s Riverview Tower. Clayton had been a principal owner of BankFirst until it was bought out by BB&T in 2001. Ironically, Clayton’s renewed presence on the banking scene here will place him in competition—on the same block of Market—with a bank recently formed by BankFirst’s former CEO, Fred Lawson. The Lawson venture, BankEast, opened earlier this month in the Crystal Building, which he purchased last fall and has renovated extensively.
Salad Days Return
The little box of a building on Union Avenue at State Street, originally a Blue Circle, stays determined to house a restaurant. Most recently home to Tortilla Mac, before that lunch place moved to Gay and Cumberland, the 110 Union location is being remodeled into a gourmet salad takeout place called, cleverly, Field of Greens. Matthew Patin, whose family owns Fountain City Creamery, is the proprietor. Spattered with green paint, roller in hand, Patin said a few days ago he expects to offer “something a little different” in the way of salads for lunch customers, “different toppings, etc.”
April 29, 2004 • Vol. 14, No. 18
© 2004 Metro Pulse
|
|
