Neighbors of the Central Gardens neighborhood are waiting to hear from law enforcement regarding an armed man walking “on Peabody (near Cooper)” Monday morning.
Members of the Central Gardens community on the popular neighborhood app, Nextdoor, have been buzzing about a post made by a user named Catherine Goode, who shared a photo of an armed man on the aforementioned street, and said that police had been called around 10:45 a.m.
Shortly after the post was made, some users posted that Grace-St.Luke’s Episcopal School (GSL) had gone on lockdown. A user named Michael Pongetti posted that the “school went on lockdown and sent an alert out to all families with children enrolled that the man was in custody by MPD (Memphis Police Department.)”
Another user, Allie Battle, commented that “GSL sent us a notification that the man was apprehended by the Memphis Police.”
However, the most recent update from a user named Rachel Hildebrand said that they had received a notification from GSL that “he was NOT apprehended.”
Many of the Nextdoor.com posters have questioned Tennessee’s permitless handgun policy. According to the Memphis Police Department’s website, the Tennessee Supreme Court “has previously held that simply being armed in public alone is not a legal basis for officers to detain someone.”
At this time, there is no official statement from the school or the Memphis Police Department.
If you drive past Midtown’s Cash Saver on Friday, you might be tempted to rubber-neck at an unusual spectacle in the street parking spaces, since, in honor of International Park(ing) Day, those spots will be converted into tiny parks.
Park(ing) Day is a global, public, participatory art project, explains Emily Bishop, board member of MidtownMemphis.org, the organization spearheading the event in Memphis. “That’s a mouthful,” she says, “but it’s where you temporarily repurpose street parking spaces into places for art, play, and activism. What we’re trying to do is get people to reimagine that area of Midtown.”
When the area around Cash Saver, Pho Binh, Crumpy’s Hot Wings, and the like was restriped to add bike lanes, the city added parking lanes, too. “Nobody uses them,” Bishop says. “They kinda get used as an inappropriate passing lane or turning lane. I mean, I see it all the time going to Home Depot.”
As such, safety is one of the points of awareness for this Park(ing) Day Project, the other point being to bring greenery to the space. The plan, Bishop says, is to plant black gum and maple trees along the sidewalk that runs east of Cash Saver on Angelus. “The sidewalk is 10-feet wide, and it has no power lines overhead, so it’s the perfect place for street trees,” she says, adding that under a tree’s shade it can be 10-15 degrees cooler, a much needed benefit during Memphis’ hot summer months. “We’re already working with Cash Saver and the City Engineer’s Office, and if all goes well, we hope to plant those trees in early November.”
Rendering of plans for tree-planting along Angelus (Credit: MidtownMemphis.org)
In the meantime, Friday will be MidtownMemphis.org’s second Park(ing) Day in front of Cash Saver. This year, the group has partnered with Memphis City Beautiful, Clean Memphis, Evergreen, Central Gardens, Neighborhood Preservation Inc. (NPI), The Works Inc., and The Home Depot.
“We’ll have some green carpet out there to make it feel like grass,” Bishop says. “There’ll be some games. We’ll have plants and bushes that’ll give you a feel of what that would be like. We’ll just see what the creativity of each of our partners is and what they do with their spaces.”
Giveaways and free snow cones will also be available, and attendees will have a chance to meet with the various groups to learn about upcoming projects and ways to volunteer.
Already, MidtownMemphis.org has planted native trees, bushes, and flowering plants on Avalon, behind Murphy’s and next to Crumpy’s.
“We were really inspired by the Medical District, the improvements they made, and, of course, Overton Square is so beautiful now,” Bishop says. “We just want this area in between to continue the good work and spread it on down. Everybody travels up and down that section of Madison.”
International Park(ing) Day, Madison Avenue in front of Cash Saver, Friday, September 16th, 3-7 pm.
Citizens of the MEMernet have been sharing photos of the hilarious Halloween decorations at this Central Gardens home.
The scene is an IRL political cartoon. In it, Donald Trump is spider-webbed to a tree surrounded by coronavirus particles. Imaginary polling data shows the homeowner is a front-runner to win Halloween.
Dog whistle?
Memphis Reddit users talked through the seemingly odd price of a propane tank at a West Memphis Tru Value hardware store last week.
The store had the tanks listed at $14.88. Some believed the price referenced the 14/88 white supremacy symbol. The “Fourteen Words” slogan seeks to secure a future for “our people” and “white children.” The “88” is a veiled reference to “H,” the eighth letter of the alphabet, which together is “Heil Hitler.”
Memphis Reddit users thought the price was too arbitrary to be anything other than a dog whistle and that tank prices are usually higher than that.
Sexy treats
Over on the Where Black Memphis Eats Facebook group, someone requested this dessert but with chocolate-covered strawberries.
Awhile back, I wrote about “sidewalk signatures” — those names pressed into sidewalks years ago by the contractors, who were so pleased with their work that they actually signed it. If you don’t remember my original column, then that’s really a shame, but go here and try to pay more attention this time.
These names were impressed into the wet cement with a mold or a stamp and have survived for decades, so it was a pretty good system.
But today I was stumbling around in Central Gardens (please don’t ask why), and happened to glance down at my feet as I moseyed along, and I noticed an entirely new — and considerably fancier — form of these signatures. As you can see, they are fancy embossed markers, cemented into place at various locations along Central Avenue. I really like the design of these things. “Miller Maker Memphis” is an especially fine one, with its triple use of a large “M.” And I’m sort of intrigued by the interlocking “paperclip” design of “Koehler Brothers & Franklin.” I assume that Franklin joined the Koehler Brothers in the concrete company and was determined to get proper (and equal) credit for the sidewalks they poured around town.
My only complaint — why didn’t everyone DATE these things? I guess it would have been expensive to create a new plaque every year, but still …
Chick-fil-A billboards joke about saving cows by eating more chicken, but if all goes as planned, the Atlanta-based company will also save a historic building in Midtown.
Chick-fil-A bought the Cumberland Presbyterian Church on Union Avenue for $1.3 million last week after a months-long battle by the Memphis Heritage Society to save the Gothic structure.
Though Chick-fil-A originally planned to raze the building, restaurant officials have worked out a deal with Memphis Heritage that will preserve the building’s tower and part of its facade.
“The area near the tower and facade facing Union would be an outdoor eating area, and the building itself would be north of that. Parking would be around the side and to the back,” said June West, director of the Memphis Heritage Society, who assisted the restaurant’s architects with the new plan.
Chick-fil-A’s vice president of real estate Erwin Reid said plans are not finalized, but the company’s goal is to save the building’s facade.
“We felt like it was the right thing to do,” Reid said. “We want to work with them as best we can since we hope those same folks will be our customers.”
Built in 1951 as the international headquarters of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, the building is not listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The Cumberland building has been on the market for several years because the church relocated its archive and office space to Cordova.
After West heard of Chick-fil-A’s plans to buy and raze the building, Memphis Heritage members began an e-mail and phone campaign to Chick-fil-A.
“The people of Central Gardens and other Midtown neighborhoods wrote these e-mails saying, we love your product; we want you here. Just try to work this out,” West said. “I think the positive reinforcement assured Chick-fil-A that this was worth the effort.”
Architects for the fast-food restaurant met with Memphis Heritage in May and worked out the new site plans.
“If this was another corporation, I don’t think they would have worked with us,” West said. “Chick-fil-A is community oriented, and they held true to that mission by talking with us and making this happen.”
Reid said construction should begin in two to four months. The restaurant is expected to open in early 2009.
This house is centrally located in Central Gardens on a large corner lot, with a wooden fence on the street side that encloses a wonderfully private courtyard for entertaining. French doors lead from the kitchen out to a patio covered by a cypress arbor. The arbor is quite tall, but a climbing vine knocks off the midday sun and a ceiling fan stirs the summer breeze. Perennials and herbs inside the fence provide seasonal interest. A curving hedge screens the rear drive and garage.
The other rear quadrant is more open and has a low, rose-covered picket fence, a play yard, and a crisply laid-out vegetable garden with raised planting beds and fine gravel walks. Several old figs, a mock orange, and “Pride of Mobile” azaleas add Southern flavor. The kitchen and mudroom connect to this yard, and that makes it easy to clean kids and veggies. Irrigation makes it easy to water the lawn.
Out back is the original two-story garage with two parking bays down and two rooms up. The groundfloor rooms are currently used for storage and a workshop. Upstairs has potential as a great guest suite or handy detached home office. An electric gate on the rear alley controls access to the drive and garage. The front yard has a grand sweep of lawn with one immense oak and an equally laudable sasanqua camellia as big as any in town.
The house is a four-square with Arts and Crafts touches. Stucco is used between the upper windows. Brick covers the exterior below the second-floor windows. It’s often the case that the upper stucco level is painted a darker color to emphasize the deep shade into which it is cast by the immense roof overhang. This overhang, usually found only in houses from the 1910s and 1920s, is underappreciated. It permits the second-floor windows to stay dry in a gentle rain and prevents the high summer sun from heating up the second floor — no small job!
The current owners have been in residence for seven busy years. Besides all that yardwork, they’ve overhauled the house, too. In addition to storm windows, two deep, bracketed canopies were added at both the front and west-side entries. These are copper-roofed and provide elegant shelter for guests.
Inside is a grand foyer that, with the living room, stretches across the front of the house. An equally spacious dining room has a cozy, glassed-in sunroom to the east and a renovated kitchen to the west. A large island topped with hard-rock maple butcher block dominates the oak-floored kitchen, which was created by removing a wall between two rooms. The island fronts two walls of white marble counters and painted cabinets that hold sink, cooktop, double ovens, and refrigerator. There is also a desk with lots of bookcases above it and still room for a couple of easy chairs or a big breakfast table in this expanded layout. The mudroom behind has lots of pantry cabinets, an extra sink, and laundry facilities. Dual central heat and air systems were installed, and plumbing and electrical services upgraded.
There are three large bedrooms and a small sitting/playroom upstairs. Both bathrooms here have been gutted and rebuilt. The hall bath retains its cast-iron tub, original pedestal sink, and toilet. A comfortable shower was added. The master bath has a long, white marble-topped vanity and a tub/shower combo. Subway tile on the walls and one-inch hexagonal tile on the floors give both baths a period feeling. Several closets were combinedto make a walk in closet with lots of built-ins for the master bedroom.
This house is certainly well set up both for raising a family and entertaining. Few homes are as well integrated with their exterior spaces. The real delight here is how readily family and friends can spill out to play and party in garden spaces that are cozy and welcoming in any season.
It certainly does not look like a bungalow from the street. Symmetrically placed windows with shutters are set on each side of a recessed entry with single-light French doors. Used brick on the front and engaged columns on the corner complete the facade that is trying so hard to be a Greek Revival cottage in the French Quarter.
A wonderful old iron fence on the left side of the yard adds to the New Orleans flavor. The house sits up on a small hill, pleasantly distanced from the street. Carrying a matching fence across the front of the hill with a wrought-iron gate at the top of the steps would be a logical finishing touch.
The inside has been thoroughly modernized, but the floor plan hints at its 1920s bungalow origin. The living room runs all the way across the front in typical bungalow style. At 20-by-23 feet, the living room is vast, and it appears that the original front porch was enclosed and added to this space in an earlier renovation. It makes for a loft-scaled space with tall windows, all with working interior shutters, a wood-burning fireplace, and heart pine floors.
The dining room also has a working gas fireplace. A bank of three windows is united by a wide sill, a detail also found in Craftsman bungalows. There are two noteworthy crystal chandeliers, one here and the larger one, appropriately, in the living room.
A small rear hall connects dining, den, downstairs bedroom, bath, and kitchen. Originally, it would have been dark, as it is completely interior. However, the ceiling of the hall was removed and a spiral staircase installed to a finished second-floor room in the former attic. Six large skylights above the hall turn it into a delightful transition space in the center of the house.
The finished attic has a second bedroom or maybe a home office and a full bath with lots of built-in storage. Frankly, it seems more appropriate to use the upstairs as a getaway space for the home office or workout room. The current downstairs den might be the better second bedroom, but you would have to add a wall closing it off from the living room. It would work well either way.
One rear corner of the house is the master bedroom, which has a full wall of closets, one of which contains the washer and dryer. This room looks out to the quiet rear yard and gets the soft morning light. The other rear corner is a generous kitchen with breakfast area. It is currently laid out in a galley format even though the room is wide enough to add another ell of cabinets. The breakfast area overlooks the private rear garden through a whole wall of windows.
There is a nicely sealed deck on the rear with built-in seating. It is ever so private, with evergreen trees and shrubs scattered about, inside a wood fence. Paths of brick and gravel lead out to an alley. It feels as secretive as a brick-walled courtyard. Inside, the addition of tall cypress doors and Greek Revival mantels would make this house feel that much closer to New Orleans.
