Placemaking report on Memphis riverfront now available

"A fresh look at the Memphis Riverfront," a placemaking exercise led by the Project for Public Spaces (PPS), brought Memphians together to gain insight and brainstorm about ways to make seven public spaces along the riverfront more celebrated, more enjoyed, and more valued.

A report on the exercise is now available. It is divided into two sections. The first compiles the ideas from the people in our community – what they saw and suggested. In the second section, PPS drew from their experience and the citizen comments to make short and long-term suggestions.

The March 2007 placemaking workshop was presented by Friends for Our Riverfront, Rhodes College Urban Studies Program, University of Memphis Planning and Zoning Institute, and Memphis Heritage. It was sponsored by the Crawford-Howard Foundation.

We hope you will enjoy this report and invite your suggestions and involvement.

Click here to read/download the report(5 MB, Adobe Acrobat).

We hope you will be part of the continuing process and give us your input. Click here to let us know what you think.

Click here to learn more about the Project for Public Spaces.

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Walk the River with Jimmy Ogle

Jimmy Ogle knows more about the historic eccentricities of downtown than most of us could learn in a long lifetime. Right now he is delighting those who turn up for his lunchtime walking tours.

The first tour focused on sewer drain covers, the second on the Mississippi River. His third,"The Mississippi River - The Land" will be Monday, May 19 and will focus on land along the riverfront.

The 45-minute free tour will start in Confederate Park at 11:45 a.m., proceed south down Riverside Drive to the foot of Monroe, and conclude at the foot of Beale Street, right under the train trestle.

The tours, sponsored by the Center City Commission, are a great way to walk off calories and learn about downtown at the same time.

For more information from the Center City Commission about what's going on downtown, click here.

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2008 Canoe & Kayak Race "ON"

“The water level should be fine, and the race is on,” according to Joe Royer, sponsor and organizer of this year's 27th Annual Outdoors Inc. Canoe and Kayak Race.
Voted the "Best Race in America," the event is set for Sat. May 3 at 10 a.m.
If you’re a paddler, click here to sign-up.
For the rest of us, head down for a view and a celebration at the finish line. Put-in is at the far end of Mud Island, and the finish line and celebration are in Jefferson Davis Park. Here’s a map, additional information, and even how to rent a boat.

To read about last year’s event,click here.

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The Water is Up

Here are some pictures taken of the Harbor and River on Sunday, March 30. Can't help but be impressed by Ole Man River this time of year and reminded how good it is to be a city on a bluff. Click on image to enlarge, and try to go for a walk along the river this week to see for yourself.

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A Plea to Save the Libraries – Cossitt Important to Memphians

As we observe the 40th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King's assassination in Memphis, the mayor could announce that closing library branches is off the table this year, and that he is bringing in some experienced people to actually run the library system.

He could also announce that he's found the money to spruce up Cossitt. And he will ask the folks at the Tennessee Historical Commission to put the branch on the National Register of Historic Places.

That’s the future the Cossitt deserves and what Otis Sanford, Editor of Opinion and Editorials for The Commercial Appeal advocated for it, four other branch libraries, and four community centers that Mayor Herenton said he intends to close. In case you missed it, here is Mr. Sanford's complete editorial from Sunday's Commercial Appeal.

If Mayor Herenton does step down, why not Otis Sanford for Mayor!!

Save libraries, starting with Cossitt
By Otis L. Sanford
Sunday, March 30, 2008
The Commercial Appeal

With Willie Herenton, you're always assured of one thing -- there will be drama.

So much drama that, as I write this column on Tuesday to accommodate an early press deadline for our special section today, I dare not discuss the mayor's irrational statements about leaving City Hall to take over Memphis City Schools.

Chances are, what he said on Monday likely was reversed by Thursday.
So why bother?

Instead, I'm still trying to reconcile Herenton's recent announcement that he plans to close five library branches and four community centers around town.

How's this for cruel irony? Hizzoner has found renewed passion for education. But he can't find the money to keep public libraries clean and open in a city that's desperate for as many learned people as we can get.

In a guest column in this newspaper last week, Herenton said the closings are a simple matter of economics. The city needs more tax dollars and shutting these facilities will save more than $2 million.

"In this current economic climate, something has to give," the mayor wrote.

Herenton does have a bit of cover for this drastic move. A $700,000 efficiency study last year suggested that the city consider closing the facilities because they are either unused, too small or in severe disrepair.

Believe me, I am all for a more efficient government. But it would be an absolute shame to close any library, particularly the Cossitt branch Downtown with its rich history.

In fact, it's equally shameful that no one has seen fit to recommend Cossitt for inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places.

Cossitt is located on the bluff at Front and Monroe overlooking the Mississippi River. The original building, a Romanesque red sandstone structure, was Memphis' first public library when it opened in April 1893.

It was established by the heirs of Frederick Cossitt, a onetime Memphian who made his fortune as a wholesale dry goods trader. The current Cossitt building facing Front Street opened in the late 1950s.

But what makes the place a real historic treasure for Memphis is what occurred there on March 19, 1960, as the civil rights movement began to engulf the South.

More than 20 African-American students from LeMoyne College, Herenton's alma mater, decided to test the city's rigid segregation policies by staging a sit-in at the Cossitt Library. They were arrested and charged with disorderly conduct, loitering and threatening the peace.

Memphian Dot Truitt Walk was one of those students. "We had heard about all the other students" challenging Jim Crow laws in cities around the South, said Walk, now 72. "We felt we had to do something too."

While planning for the sit-in, Walk said, "We had secret meetings because it was rather dangerous. There were so many black people that were against us."

Walk vividly recalls that after police forcibly removed the students from the library, she was spit on while waiting to be loaded on to a police paddy wagon.

As a result of the sit-in, Memphis civil rights leaders, led by Jesse Turner, filed a federal lawsuit to integrate the city's libraries, and the branches were opened to all races in October 1960.

Today, Cossitt, also known as the Cossitt-Goodwyn Institute Branch, is uninviting and suffering from neglect. The fountain outside the front door doesn't work, the windows are dirty and the carpeting inside is a mess. Several letters, including the first M in Memphis, are missing from the building's official name on the outside wall.

Most folks who visit these days are either waiting for a MATA bus at the corner or are homeless people looking for peace and quiet.

If Cossitt is closed, it's clear to me that the mayor's ultimate intent is to tear down the building. It's located on land, known as the Promenade, which was given to the city by Memphis' original founders. It's also prime real estate for eager developers.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not for saving old buildings just for the heck of it. But I am a proponent of saving worthy institutions of learning, particularly one that has such a strong connection to this city's civil rights history.

So if Herenton, the drama king, wants to say something really dramatic this week, here's an idea. As we observe the 40th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King's assassination in Memphis, the mayor could announce that closing library branches is off the table this year, and that he is bringing in some experienced people to actually run the library system.

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Lendermon talks about the Riverfront on "Smart City"

In a recent interview on "Smart City," Benny Lendermon, president of the Riverfront Development Corp. (RDC), talked with Carol Coletta about his organization's plan for private development of the public land on the Memphis riverfront and about public resistance to that plan.

The interview runs 25 minutes. Click here to listen.

For information about the RDC plan, click on articles to the left in the menu bar.

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A Ferry to Where?

The federal $ going to Beale Street Landing is supposed to be for a ferry terminal. By definition a ferry goes from one side of a body of water to the other side in a location where there is no bridge, so the logical question has been: A ferry to where?

Benny Lendermon, president of the Riverfront Development Corp. (RDC) may have answered the questioned the other day. It doesn’t actually fit the definition of a ferry, but, according to Lendermon, “there’s an individual in Memphis, one person, who’s fairly serious about a water taxi going to Tunica from there.”

The night-time illustration of BSL makes it look like this may be part of the game plan.

For a long time, lots of people have been wondering why we’d build an expensive new boat dock. This may be the missing piece of the puzzle.

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