A Trip to a Rarely Seen Civil War Landmark
Wednesday, Feb. 3, 2010
Fort Stanley looks a good deal different than it did just over 146 years ago, when young men climbed the steep hill just south of downtown Knoxville and dug embattlements out of the cold clay. Full story »
The Vendome, Knoxville’s Architectural Wonder of 1890
Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2010
One January evening, 120 years ago, witnessed an astonishing new presence on Clinch Avenue. In January, 1890, no one had ever seen such a tall building in Knoxville: the brick and stone building with a round tower of sorts forming part of it rose five stories above the sidewalk, with a high-pitched dome even above that. Adorned with a stone cascade of balconies and vestibules and embellished with elaborate sandstone carvings, it looked like something in a dream. It was known as the Vendome. Full story »
The Loss of a UT Football Coach, and the End of Human Civilization: Compare
Tuesday, Jan. 19, 2010
The sudden departure of the University of Tennessee’s football coach brought back a memory of being a kid in the new place called Arby’s on Kingston Pike, hearing angry grown-ups talk about our mutual hero, Doug Dickey. Full story »
Janis Joplin, the Rolling Stones, and Knoxville
Wednesday, Jan. 13, 2010
I’m learning that dozens of people who were at the Janis Joplin concert at the University of Tennessee’s Stokely Athletic Center in 1969 are readers of Metro Pulse. If not every single issue. Full story »
Knoxville’s Time: an Ode
Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2010
You need not be an accredited municipal mystic/To notice some plans don’t come out realistic/Big Knoxville proposals we say “there’s been talk of...."/Would fill several books by Vladimir Nabokov. Full story »
Some Surprisingly Positive Portents for a New Year
Tuesday, Dec. 29, 2009
Go to First Night. I haven’t yet proven that Adolph Ochs, the father of the world’s most famous New Year’s Eve celebration in Times Square, based his party on his memories of a typical Saturday night on Market Square in the 1870s, when he worked there as an apprentice printer. But I mean to get around to it. Full story »
A Historic Christmas Murder for 2009 (Part II: The Verdict)
Wednesday, Dec. 23, 2009
It was Christmastime in the city, and as usual Knoxville was keeping an eye out for killers. This time it was Luther Nelson, the 25-year-old pool-hall proprietor wanted for shooting William Sanders and leaving him to die on the pavement of Jacksboro Street, not far from Old Gray Cemetery. The unarmed victim’s main offense was dating a young woman who also appealed to Nelson. Word was that the killer had hopped a northbound freight. Full story »
A Historic Christmas Murder for 2009 (Part I)
Wednesday, Dec. 16, 2009
A dead man in the street wasn’t all that common a sight, even in Knoxville, where a few years ago there were sometimes half-a-dozen killings in the week before Christmas. But that was back before the city banned saloons. Full story »
Some December Notes From the Secret History Files
Wednesday, Dec. 9, 2009
When I wrote about Janis Joplin performing at the University of Tennessee’s Stokely Athletics Center 40 years ago, the fact that she’d ever played in Knoxville was fairly recent news to me. Reader and musical memorabilia collector Scott Lee enlightened me about the fact a few months ago, and sent me a copy of the Daily Beacon review from which I quoted. He told me a lot of other stuff I didn’t know, like the fact that the Rolling Stones played here twice in their early days, at the Civic Coliseum. Full story »
The Unusual Historical Paintings of Russell Briscoe
Wednesday, Dec. 2, 2009
Have a look at the Russell Briscoe exhibit at the Museum of East Tennessee History. Before Christmas, if possible, especially if you have kids. Bring them. There aren’t many opportunities parents have to enjoy art exhibits with your children, but this is one. Full story »
Booker T. Washington Biography Reexamines Legacy
Wednesday, Nov. 25, 2009
On Market Square, Booker T. Washington gave a talk calling for equal justice for blacks and emphasizing the fact that black people had a right to live forever in the South, their American home. But his talk might sound disconcertingly retrograde to modern audiences. “We are going to live together here in the South as black people and white people. We can live separately socially, and are going to do so. No sensible Negro desires to have social intermingling with the white people of the South.” Full story »
Should the City Reclaim the Downtown Library?
Wednesday, Nov. 18, 2009
Knox County government is not appropriating enough money to run the library system, at least not as it’s set up now. After cutbacks this month, the McClung remains open after 5 only on Monday. The rest of the week, it’s open only four to six hours a day. Full story »
Martin Hunt, Citizen of the World
Wednesday, Nov. 11, 2009
Martin Hunt is the only person of his sort. Many older folks recall him as a dancing instructor’s assistant at Miss Annie McGhee’s Dancing School on old Temple Avenue, back in the ’30s and ’40s, when the socially aspirant sent their children to Miss Annie’s by 7th grade so they’d learn to behave around adults. For years, Martin foxtrotted and jitterbugged with Miss Annie’s girls who were too tall for the boys their own age. Few of them might have guessed that Martin, who loved to tell stories about Knoxville society, would ever be a world traveler, an adventurer of sorts, but it turned out that way. He’s walked in most of the countries in the world, with friends or on his own, and has seen things most never will. Full story »
UT Homecoming Rekindles Memories of a Different Era
Wednesday, Nov. 4, 2009
Knoxville, November, 1969. A strange time and place by any measure. On the west coast, there was talk about legalizing marijuana. In Knoxville, there was talk of legalizing wine. Knoxville was reportedly the biggest non-Utah city that didn’t offer wine or liquor by the drink. It had been legalized for package sales only nine years earlier—you could buy wine and liquor by the bottle—but Knoxvillians hadn’t tolerated liquor by the drink since the saloon ban of 1907. Full story »
New Restaurants Leave Imagination Wanting
Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2009
Something about walking into the renovated S&W last week made me think of an old art film with a cultish following when I was in college, “Quasi at the Quackadero.” Quasi was this peculiar duck-like character, and the big thing in his life was every chance to go to the Quackadero, a bizarre sort of psychedelic art-deco arcade where you could do almost anything: have a cup of coffee, have your mind read, go back in time.
What we need, I think, is a Quackadero. Full story »
What we need, I think, is a Quackadero. Full story »