Civic Center’s Clock Tower Demolished (and Back to the Future References) (4)
No one saved the clock tower!
Civic Center’s Clock Tower Demolished (and Back to the Future References)
The massive clock tower that straddled the trolley tracks on Civic Center Plaza is gone. It was demolished this week by crews making way for new developments Downtown. 
Wikipedia
This is the briefest of descriptions for the demolition given by officials in the city of Memphis website:
“Beginning Friday, May 8th, at 7 a.m., and lasting until Thursday, May 21st, Main Street between Poplar Avenue and Adams Avenue will be closed to traffic. The section of Main Street around the area of the (Memphis Area Transit Authority — MATA) clock tower will be fenced off to allow public works in association with MATA to demolish the structure.”
The tower had to go, specifically, to make way for the development of the Loews Hotel (below), which is to be built on Civic Center Plaza.
Vehicle traffic will run on Main Street right where the clock tower stood earlier this week, according to Robert Knecht, director of the city’s public works department, which is overseeing the Main Street project. You can sort of get the gist of the thing in this image:
Plans have that part of Main (between Poplar and Adams) opened up to car traffic much as it is now on nearby Madison Avenue. Knecht said the hotel’s main entrance will be right off Main.
Google Maps
The clock tower was certainly the stuff of tourist photographs, certainly if there was a big trolley sitting beneath it. No, it was never going to be as iconic as Beale Street, the M Bridge, Sun, Stax, or any of that.
It wasn’t as stately as some clock towers. Like this one:
Civic Center’s Clock Tower Demolished (and Back to the Future References) (3)
And our clock tower never did this:
Civic Center’s Clock Tower Demolished (and Back to the Future References) (2)
There was a sort of charm about the tower. But never much history.
It was built as a part of a Main Street re-vamp in the late ’80s or early ’90s. So, historic preservationists didn’t show up when word got out that the tower was coming down.
transit.com
“Nobody wanted it,” Knecht said. “So, basically the [work crew] demolished it and scrapped it. Nobody stepped up and said they wanted it So, we had to get rid of it.”
[pullquote-1] Also, maybe there was no hubbub for the tower coming down because there was a near-double of it just south by Peabody Place.
So, no one wandered around the mall handing out these bad boys:
Civic Center’s Clock Tower Demolished (and Back to the Future References) (6)
So, while most of us are hunkered down at home, the tower was there and disappeared quickly, much like a DeLorean carrying a flux capacitor traveling at 88 miles per hour.
Civic Center’s Clock Tower Demolished (and Back to the Future References) (2)
Okay, now I’m done with the Back to the Future references.
