A column by Eleanor Scott about Knoxville’s untidy corners.

• An Appreciation of Clotheslines Published 5/16/2012 at 12:41 p.m. 2 comments

  Maybe more compelling than the satisfaction of “saving” the environment, I like the way a clothesline looks strung across a yard. Clotheslines are alive and dynamic in a way dryers are not. I like the way it makes me feel ...

• The Secret Garden: Beauty in a Hidden Vegetable Patch Published 5/2/2012 at 4:07 p.m. 1 comment

  I saw the tomatoes first, bright red fruit popping out against the tangle of vegetation. Then, everything emerged into focus: the beds of okra and bush beans terraced into the steep hillside, squash and climbing beans with delicate white blossoms ...

• Po'ridge: An Isolated Neighborhood Evolves and Abides Published 4/18/2012 at 12:32 p.m. 0 comments

  Po’ridge, short for “Poor Ridge,” is a skinny neighborhood extending north and south along North 6th Avenue, bound by Hall of Fame Drive to the west, and riding hard against the industrial dead zone of the Standard Knitting Mill to ...

• The I-40 Corridor's Unnatural Divide Published 4/4/2012 at 1:12 p.m. 0 comments

  The SmartFIX40 project, which included the widening of Interstate 40 and the creation of Hall of Fame Drive, sharpened the isolation of East Knoxville from the other historic neighborhoods of Fourth and Gill, Old North, and downtown—a divide begun in ...

• The Eclectic Collective Known As Groundswell Published 3/21/2012 at 11:50 a.m. 0 comments

  The nondescript concrete-block building at 1215 Magnolia Ave. still smells a little like the doggie day care it was before becoming home to Groundswell Collective in December. The building includes a living room with comfortable old sofas, a music room, ...

• Knoxville Bike Collective Offers Workshops and Free Bikes Published 3/7/2012 at 11:16 a.m. 0 comments

  Jonathan Woodroof and Kevin Horn currently head up the Bike Collective, a constantly evolving collection of volunteers dedicated to promoting biking and educating the public to the joy of bike assembly and maintenance.

• Welcome to Poo Corner Published 2/22/2012 at 12:14 p.m. 1 comment

  This space belongs to nobody, and so dog owners walk their dogs there so they don’t have to pick up after them. In our family we call it the Dog Poo Corner. Still, it’s the closest public space, and we ...

• Wandering Around Knoxville’s Abandoned Industrial Sites Published 2/8/2012 at 1:50 p.m. 2 comments

  There is not much left of Fulton Bellows now—just piles of gravel and immense slabs of concrete towering over Third Creek. The life has been obliterated from the land. The site is a brownfield; the groundwater underneath is contaminated. Despite ...

• Knoxville’s Sweet and Earnest Graffiti Art Published 1/25/2012 at 11:55 a.m. 0 comments

  The city attacks graffiti in this area with a bewildering ferocity. Someone pointed out that as a gateway to Parkridge, maybe the city wants the underpass to look nice. Maybe, but demoralizing lengths of empty concrete walls do nothing to ...

• JC’s Market Is So Old-Fashioned It’s Progressive Published 1/11/2012 at 11:18 a.m. 1 comment

  JC’s Market at 514 North Olive Street has been owned and operated for 39 years by J.C. Warwick, a quiet man who describes himself and his business as “pretty low-key.”

• Making a Home in an Abandoned House Published 12/21/2011 at 11:56 a.m. 0 comments

  Joon and Tae (not their real names) spent the past year hitchhiking across the U.S. and Canada. Tae, 23, is the gregarious one, with a knack for diffusing awkward situations. Joon, 22, is quiet, stoic; she seems to take everything ...

• Hens in the City: One Year Later Published 12/7/2011 at 11:10 a.m. 0 comments

  Roosters, still prohibited in the city, are a dead giveaway of an illegal flock. Some mornings I hear the crowing of illicit roosters while sipping coffee on my porch—homey yet exotic in their anachronistic existence in Fourth and Gill.

• Three Rivers Market and TN Valley Bikes Team Up Published 11/23/2011 at 11:54 a.m. 3 comments

  I hear a lot of nice things about Three Rivers Market lately, and one of them is how good they are to their bicycling customers. In addition to TRM’s bright green bike racks placed right by the door of their ...

• A Citizen-Built Bus Shelter Published 11/9/2011 at 11:37 a.m. 0 comments

  Noonie is Willard “Noonie” Joiner, Hiscock’s friend since childhood. Joiner, a 56-year-old stroke survivor, rides the bus every day but Sunday. The bus stop Joiner uses most often is located along a weedy stretch of road. There was no shade, ...

• Parkridge Skatepark Published 10/26/2011 at 11:59 a.m. 0 comments

  The most satisfying playgrounds don’t come in a box and can’t be picked out of a catalog.

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