Author: Hannah Sayle

If you think the housing market has taken it on the chin, you can imagine what the downturn has done to historic homes.

Lately, though, things are looking up for Memphis’ oldest residences. The Magevney House on Adams downtown, shuttered by city budget cuts in 2005, will reopen its doors to the public starting September 7th.

The grand reopening follows closely on the heels of the Mallory-Neely House’s reopening as a historic house museum last November. It was also closed in the 2005 budget season. Both the Magevney House and the Mallory-Neely House are operated by the Pink Palace Family of Museums.

On top of an already tight financial situation, the homes were forbidden to reopen without making accommodations to come into compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

The renovations proved to be a difficult undertaking for the Mallory-Neely House. The city funded a new ramp for the back of the house, along with some ADA-approved bathrooms, but the second story of the home remains off-limits to visitors with disabilities. Instead, those visitors are offered a virtual video tour of the second floor — also funded by the city — which is screened in the carriage house behind the home.

The Magevney House found itself in a similar predicament. A two-bedroom clapboard house, dwarfed by the surrounding buildings in the heart of downtown, the home is so small that structural changes to make the home wheelchair-accessible would compromise the historical integrity of the home. As an alternative, the Pink Palace created a virtual tour of the Magevney House, which will also be on display at the Mallory-Neely carriage house.

“We had ADA consultants, funded by the city of Memphis, come in and do an audit and tell us what could be done. It was determined that the only way to make the Magevney House 100 percent compliant would ruin the historical character of the house,” Creel said. “[The virtual tour] is the same length as a real tour, and we point out the same artifacts in the same order as a real tour.”

The Magevney House was built by Irish immigrant Eugene Magevney in the 1830s and serves as a snapshot of antebellum life in the South. Here, the city’s first Catholic baptism and first Catholic wedding took place, and next door sits the historic St. Peter Catholic Church, founded in part by the Magevney family. Eugene Magevney died in the yellow fever epidemic of 1873, but the home remained with the family until it was given to the city in 1941.

The family stipulated that the house be open to the public free of charge, unlike the Mallory-Neely House, which is able to charge admission to visitors. The stipulation creates a sticky wicket for operating and maintaining the historic home, and though the city funds maintenance of the property, the daily operating costs of the home are left to the Pink Palace. Without any extra funding to reopen the Magevney House, Creel said the Pink Palace is relying on its devoted staff and generous volunteers to keep the home open every first Saturday of the month from 1 to 4 p.m.

“We’re stretching, but we think we’ll have enough money to do this by judiciously watching every hour somebody’s on duty,” Creel said. “It’s a part of Memphis history that we’d like to share with the public. I wish it were open more often, but we’re doing the best with what we’ve got.”

On a particularly muggy Thursday morning, an unusual-looking bus sits at the dock of the Easy Way Distribution Center warehouse on South Mendenhall. Painted in a neon-green hue and decorated with larger-than-life drawings of fruits and vegetables, this retired MATA bus has got a brand-new bag.

Known as the Green Machine, the bus-turned-mobile market has spent the last two weeks venturing into food deserts and other underserved areas of Memphis to bring fresh produce to residents. Each weekday, the bus makes a different round of stops — from North Memphis to South Memphis, Center City to Orange Mound. This morning, the bus is waiting to be stocked. Where seats once lined the aisles, now large wooden bins rise up from the floor, and soon, these bins will be filled with watermelons, corn, tomatoes, squash, grapes, and bananas — all supplied by Easy Way.

What may seem like a humble operation is actually the product of a Herculean effort started in the spring of 2012. Partnering with St. Patrick’s Catholic Church, Kenneth Reardon, a professor and director of the graduate program of city and regional planning at the University of Memphis leased an old MATA bus. He then called on a visiting professor from Italy, Antonio Raciti, to draw up plans for repurposing the bus into the Green Machine. But before he could do so, Reardon had to track down the obsolete bus plans and specifications from the Volvo plant in Quebec, where the auto manufacturers were thrilled to hear about the bus’s second lease on life.

Once the designs were done, one of Reardon’s students, who’d served in the military and had experience from an auto body shop in Kandahar, stripped the bus down so it could be primed and painted. Local students from Hollis Price High School stepped in to hand-paint the bus, and the Memphis Grizzlies rewarded the kids with practice jerseys and T-shirts from the players.

“None of this could have happened without robust partnerships with students, churches, neighborhood associations, Easy Way, and our advisory board of 24 organizations,” Reardon says.

With the bus loaded up, the Green Machine embarks for its first stop of the day, the Venson Center high-rise at Danny Thomas Boulevard and Beale. Here, like most of the stops, seniors and residents living with disabilities make up the bulk of customers. Only two weeks in, the bus has captured the attention of a number of shoppers, but young people are few. Too, there are large chunks of time where no one enters the bus.

Although the Green Machine will focus on serving impoverished neighborhoods, there’s no income requirement for shoppers.

For now, for those who do frequent the Green Machine, the experience seems to be about more than buying food.

“There is a big social and community aspect to this,” Reardon says. “On our very first day out, there was a torrential downpour, but at our first stop there was a 104-year-old woman there waiting. Food establishes and maintains a sense of community.”

Karlita Weaver, the Green Machine cashier and operator agrees. “They’re really appreciative,” she says. “I’m already starting to recognize some of the same faces coming in here.”

For victims of domestic violence, a voice can be a very powerful thing.

Hence the name of the new domestic violence survivor advocacy group, VOICES. Made up of about 20 domestic violence survivors, VOICES aims to stamp out silence about domestic violence and give victims the strength and resources to break free from their abusers.

“My story of violence and abuse began in 1978. It didn’t end until 2005,” VOICES member Mary Ann Carmack told a room of fellow members and reporters at a press conference last Thursday. “I was 18 years old, and after a brief and intense courtship, I married my husband. Within a week, he found a photograph and went into a rage because there were pictures of boys from my high school. He referred to them as my former lovers. He proceeded to hit me, push me down the stairs, and kick me until I got up and ran out the front door.”

Carmack, along with VOICES members Miea Williams and Joyce Parkinson, shared their harrowing experiences as victims of domestic violence.

Williams was married to a pastor and recovering addict who beat her so badly doctors told her she was lucky to be alive. Parkinson found herself in a cycle of physical and sexual abuse that carried on from her first husband to her second. All three women describe the transition from victim to survivor as one of finding their voice.

“When I finally wrenched myself free of this situation, it was the hardest thing I’d ever done,” Carmack said. “Now I can use my voice to be a voice for those who still live in fear of violence.”

VOICES is housed in the Family Safety Center at 1750 Madison and connects victims with a large safety net, which includes resources such as counseling and legal support at the Shelby County Rape Crisis Center, the YWCA of Greater Memphis, the Shelby County Crime Victims Center, and the Exchange Club Family Center.

Vernetta Eddleman, manager of the Shelby County Crime Victims Center, estimates that the Memphis Police Department receives around 25,000 calls related to domestic violence each year.

“Some of these are repeat calls, but many are not,” Eddleman said. “And for every one victim who calls, there are two or three other victims who don’t.”

The phone call or police report is only the beginning, Eddleman said. Getting out of the relationship is a process, one that many victims cannot do on their own.

“You are more likely to be a victim of homicide after you leave,” she said. “That’s why you have to have a plan.”

This is where organizations like VOICES can point victims in the direction of the information and support they need to leave abusive situations safely. But simply acknowledging that domestic violence exists and happens to people of all races, genders, and classes may be the first and most important step to bringing domestic abuse to light.

“You live in silence. You live in fear and isolation,” Carmack said. “But the perpetrator of violence and abuse cannot succeed without your silence. You think and hope that your silence guarantees your life. It doesn’t.”