Letter: Empty Streets Best Left As Memories

Success is tough on some, I suppose.

The days of spooky vacancy downtown are over, and I’m not regretting it.

Michael Haynes’ column on “too much liveliness” leaves me cold. [“Nonparticipant,” Shot of Urban, July 5, 2012]

It’s been years since I lived downtown, but I still feel it’s like home. The time of empty streets with an occasional tumbleweed rolling through holds a certain nostalgic charm, but the beat of the city is definitely up. I love it.

Those who pine for solitude among vacant warehouses and stone towers can still find it to the east and north, beyond the fringes of the activity centered on Gay Street and Market Square.

For myself, I have no regrets of the city’s vigor, as it continues to increase, and eventually fill the area between State Street and the convention center, and to push into Happy Holler, and will jump the river to the south. This is nothing but good.

Michael, stroll the roadways and alleys of East Depot and Emory Place for fading desolation. I will tread the lonely, desolate streets of the 1980s in my memory, but I revel in the burgeoning downtown.

George Scott

Knoxville

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