Big Mosey in the Big M

Its kinda hard to do a tour of your home town, because there's too much there to talk about. But we'll start downtown, and work east. May need a second or third chapter to do it all justice, tho.

I am told that the city's riverfront was the city dump, at one time. A certain EH Crump thought that needed changing, so he got a street built over it, called Riverside Drive. For many years, the dump settled under the street, giving you rises and drops in the ride in either direction. Some years later, the city decided to fix that. They were also into expanding the city front park, called Tom Lee Park, to accommodate the world class barbecue cooking contest being held there. That's another article, tho.

They stabilized the road, and generally flattened it, and broke it out into a 4 lane divided road. That was a pain, but it let vehicles pass in 2 lanes while the other two were tied up with festival doins. Anyway, one memorable old site for me that was lost in all this was John B Edgar Point. My father took his young family of 8 down to the river back in the 50's, and launched his 14 foot Century boat into the Mississippi River at this point. The Delta Queen also used this for a landing point sometimes. Ahhh Memories! Hi-C in your glass, and sand in your sandwich! Seems we usually got lunch from Kay's Barbecue on Crump Blvd. Kay's is a memory too.

Anyway, a dump got turned into a street, that got expanded into a large, long city front park. Further north were the cobblestones, laid on the slope for cotton shipping. Back before the Civil War the cobblestones were the landing point ON the river itself. Mud Island wasn't around then, giving us an off-channel protected harbor that we have today. Need to see a diagram of it all, myself.

Cannon are still present at Confederate Park, and Jefferson Davis Parks, one uphill from the other. These are two city parks recognizing the city as a Southern City before the naval battle that changed that. The state of Tennessee was very much getting ready for secession from the union. It was one of the earliest states to do it, tho, it took two votes in the state legislature to do it. East Tennessee was a strong area for Union sympathy.

There are four promontory sites on the river, two near the river, and two back from it, called the Chickasaw Bluffs. Memphis is on the southernmost one, the fourth. The Chickasaw Indians were living in this area, and have a burial mound near the fourth one, in DeSoto Park. Its just south of the first set of bridges across the river.

If the Mississippi River is anything, its wandering. It changes its mind about a channel almost daily. The US Army Corps of Engineers are somewhat controlling it, but not completely. They have a LARGE battle down in Louisiana at the Atchafalaya River, which goes directly south to the Gulf. Ole Man River wants it, and the Corps is having to work to keep New Orleans from becoming a backwater town.

In Memphis, there is a a group of people known as the Friends for our Riverfront. It is headed by a descendent of one of the town's original founders, John Overton. Virginia Overton McLean is the feisty, sparky head of this group. Their crowning achievement thus far is keeping the city from filling in a portion of the harbor and establishing a land bridge over to Mud Island. The city insists on establishing a landing for touring boats on the river. Thing is, the whole Queen fleet- Delta Queen, Mississippi Queen and American Queen- are all tied up at New Orleans, victims of the current recession. So WHO is coming to Beale Street Landing? And why is the city SO willing to spend money on it?

The whole idea behind Friends for our Riverfront is to keep the city's riverfront land as a public area, not dominated by commercial development.
Virginia is a personal friend and fellow writer, so I called her to confim this with her. Go see their site at friendsforourriverfront.com, and get the whole scoop on them.

Up on top of the bluff is Front Steet. The north part of this is up in the Pinch, originally a Jewish neighborhood. Its called the Pinch because these people were pinchgut poor. In 1991, on land just west of it, the city built a pyramid shaped sports arena, essentially a basketball house for a professional team. That body known as the NBA decided it was up to their standards, then it wasn't. So, the Pyramid lies empty, unused, and city residents are still paying the construction bill on it. The NBA plays in another arena, Fedex Forum.

Going south on Front Street, you may see a marker at the Madison intersection. It is the zero point for mileages to Memphis, all directions. It is also the north south zero point for addresses in the city. Front Street itself is the east west zero point, until it gets down to a point way further south, where Florida Street decides numbers. Addresses number upward north and south from Madison in Midtown, Walnut Grove further east.

One of the more historical parts of the city is the cotton trading area known as Cotton Row. Traders lined Front St on both sides. Memphis was and still is the number one trading post for cotton in the world. A whole city festival called Cotton Carnival grew up around it, replacing Mardi Gras as the chief city festival. Memphis flirted with Mardi Gras, but it never really took hold here.

Go south to Union, and turn right. As you look downhill, turn left and see the very first effort at reviving downtown as a residential area. Its called the Tympani Building. The late, great architect Jack Tucker took an old building and redesigned it for housing, living in it until his death earlier this year. He called it the Tympani because he was beating the drum for downtown development. He continued beating that drum, getting first city government attention, then resistance, then complete cooperation, leading to the 30,000+ residents calling downtown Memphis their home.

Hungry? Stop at the Front Street Deli back up the hill at the corner of Front and Union. Front Steet Deli is a hole in the wall restaurant you might have seen mentioned in the Grisham novel movie "The Firm". Lee Busby has all variety of sandwiches there. He steams 'em, melting the cheese and meat together. Your mouth will think its in heaven with one of his delicacies in it, I promise you. I ate many a meal there with Jack Tucker present. His office was right on top of it.

Front Street continues, passing the home offices of AutoZone, a shining glass presence on the Memphis skyline. It's a Memphis born, Memphis based company, founded by Pitt Hyde.

Further south, and you are at Peabody Place, a street running east to 4th street. It runs along the south side of Peabody Place, a hotel that grew into a venue for shops, restaurants and a movie theater.

At the corner of Front and Beale, you see a huge building known as the Orpheum Theater, home to Broadway in Memphis. Shows come and go in and out of there all the time. I occasionally have the pleasure of setting them up and shutting them down and packing them back up. Stagehand work is a natural for a kid who still gets fascinated by the hardware that goes in and out of there. On Monday morning, you're watching the show's techies marking out the stage, and you can look across the stage and see the seats then. By Wednesday morning, you can't see 10 feet, because the wardrobe and props area is set up at the back of a stage full of the show's set. And the hardware that goes up in the air above the stage makes it an act of faith to walk in that area at all!

Now, go a block east, to Main Street, and then south again. The Church of God in Christ was given a major Memphis landmark in its day, the Chisca Hotel. The Chisca was the home of WHBQ, the first radio station to play a song by a kid from the projects known as Elvis Presley. Dewey Phillips was the DJ, and he had a radio show where he gave airtime to new talent. Between Sam Phillips and Dewey Phillips (not related), Elvis got his start in music entertainment in the mid-50's. I well remember my older brothers playing Elvis tunes on the record player when I was a younger kid.

Now, go north on Main Street, and it becomes a pedestrian mall, with trolleys in the middle, and stays this way for a mile or so. The city did this in the early to mid 70's, taking it away from drivers and giving it to walkers. I cover this in my very first article about Memphis, Trekkin on Main Street.
One recent memory I will share is going downtown on 9/11/2001 to see how downtown looked after what happened in New York City. The trolleys were all stopped and gathered on the mall at Adams Street. Police vehicles were everywhere near City Hall. It was spooky looking that day.

This is now 4 pages long, as I predicted, and, as I also predicted, it couldn't be done in one article. So, I'll stoke up some more useless stuff and throw it at you in the next chapter. See you then!