Going to the show

Tom Hanchett, historian at the Levine Museum of the New South, sent along a link to Asheville's page at the site, Going to the Show. It is fascinating to learn about theaters, their locations and their role in daily life in the early 20th century. The site also gives us plenty of ideas for ways to connect information so that we can learn about our cities.

Memphis' Main Street

I had the great pleasure of visiting Main Street, Memphis, TN today, hosted by Altha Stewart and Emma Martin. Reverend Noel Hutchinson oriented me to Memphis, saying that there's so much history here you could easily spend three days seeing sights without repeating any. He took me to see the small music studio where Al Green recorded his hit records. I really connected with his insight as Altha, Emma and I were driving on and around Main Street. The historic waterfront, the touristy Beale Street, the tragic Lorraine Motel, and so many other places that are iconic parts of American life are right there by Main Street. Memphis has turned this to advantage, dressing Main Street up for the tourists. I can understand the impulse to do this, as the place touches the kind of deep feelings that attract people. But there was also a tendency to remarkable paintings on buildings -- not slogany murals, but real, deeply felt works of art -- and these sprouted all around Main Street as they seem to do throughout the city. They are a sign that Main Street is still serving local people, though perhaps not as well as it serves visitors from around the world. In that same vein of ambiguity, Main Street Memphis is not as thin as some I have seen, but it has its share of nearby empty lots, reminders of a lost industrial past. How does Main Street help in the reinvention of Main Street? If it has no room for the locals, the city has lost a key place of conversation. In that situation, how does the city have the conversation that's needed to save the city? It reminds me of the nursery rhyme "For want of a nail, the shoe was lost..." Memphis' ambiguity strikes me as holding enough connection to itself that it is a chance of holding that necessary conversation. At the same time, it has the stirring creativity of great port city. I say Memphis is a city to watch.

Terri Baltimore's address to SAJE People's Planning School

Terri Baltimore is a community organizer in Pittsburgh, PA, working in the Hill District. This African American neighborhood is a famous place, home to many artists, including August Wilson whose plays detail life in there. In 2007, Terri Baltimore addressed the SAJE People's Planning School and shared the story of her work in the Hill District. I was a part of that work, beginning in 1997, when I was invited to address residents who were being displaced by HOPE VI. I came to Pittsburgh knowing that displacement was a painful and costly process. I learned while there that displacement was not simply a problem of the past, but was a repeated problem, affecting the same spaces and the same people, over and over. This summer I plan to go back to Pittsburgh to understand another part of this story: economic displacement by deindustrialization.

New York Moments

Here's one way to see the city.

Vinegar Hill, Charlottesville, VA

Tom Hanchett, historian at the Museum of the New South, sent an email about a student project depicting what urban renewal did to the African American community of Vinegar Hill. He notes, "Here's an absolutely PHENOMENAL visualization of the African American neighborhood that was wiped out by Urban Renewal in Charlottesville, VA. Delve especially into the dryly named 'Appraisal' page -- the more you click, the more impressive it gets." Hanchett is himself a student of urban change, having authored, Sorting Out the New South City, which tells the story of Charlotte, NC. Over the course of its development, Charlotte was transformed from a small city in which people lived near others who were different in race and in class, to a much larger city strictly divided by race+class.

December 5th in the Urbanist's Calendar

On December 1st, 1995, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus, a watershed moment in the modern Civil Rights movement. Protests up that point were important but small: Freedom Riders on a bus, for example, or protesters at a lunch counter. The Montgomery Bus Boycott was a mass movement, in which 50,000 people boycotted the bus system for more than a year, until integration was achieved. The mass movement actually started on Monday December 5th. People who were leaders of the movement all described what it was like to wait for the first buses that Monday morning, wondering if the masses of black people would agree to boycott. It was thrilling when the buses started to roll past empty! That night, in the first mass meeting of the Montgomery protest, Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., stepped forward to lead the movement. In film of that night, we can see him hesitate for second, knowing that he is changing the course of history and of his own life. He steps forward humbly to do his part. December 5th, then, is an important day in the urbanist's calendar. A quirky aspect of the day in the New York Metropolitan area is that December 5th marks an abrupt shift in the weather, from fall to winter. There is usually a storm on that day. This has frustrated our efforts to have December 5th parties, I can assure you. Just as we know that the first weekend in June is likely to be fine for our Hike the Heights party, we know that December 5th will be blustery for whatever we have planned. In these uncertain times, I found today's snowflakes reassuring. Happy December 5th to one and all!

Main Street Shopping

Main Streets, like every part of our commercial sector, are trying to get a piece of the holiday shopping action. In Orange, the Urban Enterprise Zone has hung signs telling people to come "Home for the Holidays." In Hoboken flyers have been announcing that there will be entertainment this week during special evening hours at participating boutiques. In Jersey City, which is also an urban enterprise zone, the mayor has been on television urging people to shop locally and save on taxes. I like these campaigns and intend to do my shopping on Main Streets. It will be a fun time for meeting friends and family, and taking in the sights and sounds of the neighborhoods. But more important, I can find out what's up in America. What will the people be doing? How are they managing? There's no place like Main Street to find out what's up with "Main Street." As we face the expansion of another terrible war, more bad news about the economy, and the strains of the cold and flu season, I want to know what my fellow Americans are feeling.