Brighten up a wet weekend with a look at this documentary on the revitalization of Broad Avenue by Edward Valibus.
Valibus, a graduate of Overton High School and the University of Memphis who lives in Cordova, partnered with the Mayor’s Innovation and Delivery Team to produce the short doc, doing all the camera, sound, production and interviewing work himself. Most of the filming was done the week before the grand opening on April 19th.
Among the business owners interviewed are David Wayne Brown, Guy Weaver, Tom Clifton and Pat Brown, Cynthia Norwood, Jay and Shalene McLaughlin, N J and Khara Woods, and Michael Andrews. Broad Avenue, with its grade-level train tracks that always seemed to bring rush-hour traffic to a standstill, looked doomed when Sam Cooper Boulevard was extended several years ago. But a combination of owners who wouldn’t quit and new ones attracted to what was something of a blank canvas are bringing it back.
“Broad kind of has a wild-card feel about what it can turn into,” said Valibus. “Other areas like Overton Square and South Main have more of a theme. Broad can become anything.”
(Mural by artist Guillaume Alby)
