Categories
Letter From The Editor Opinion

A Brief History of Midtown Kroger

My wife and I live on Idlewild Street, very near the new Midtown Kroger, so near, in fact, that Tom Brady could probably throw a football from our backyard into the parking lot. He’d have to clear a couple other backyards and some tall trees, but I believe he could do it.

Given our proximity, we have watched with great interest — and no small amount of trepidation — the process of demolition and construction that has transpired on Union as the Taj Mahal Kroger has come into being.

Our street, despite its connection to one of the city’s main thoroughfares, has always been a quiet one. There are only nine houses on the block. I know the names of all our neighbors, and the names of their kids. They ride bikes and play basketball in the street.

We all feared the new Kroger might mean the loss of our little enclave, especially when we learned another development was planned for the nearby corner of McLean and Union. This precipitated what came to be known “gate-gate” on nextdoor.com. It began with a proposal from McLean developer Ron Belz to gate South Idlewild (his childhood street) from Union. As residents of Idlewild, we thought, “Hell, yes!” Other neighbors were not so enthusiastic; in fact, they hated the idea, which I understand. After much back and forth, a compromise was reached. (Or, as my attorney wife says, “If you want a kitten, ask for a pony.”) It was agreed (and approved by city council) that Idlewild would be one-way north, which would theoretically prevent traffic leaving the new Kroger from using our street. Theoretically.

Then we watched as cranes and wrecking balls ate the old apartment tower and as a new temporary lot was constructed to service the old store. When construction on the new store began, we endured months of loud booms, and jackhammers, and literally earth-shaking pounding. Dust coated our outside window sills. The only consolation was that there was absolutely no traffic on our street.

Then came the opening of the glorious new Kroger, and possibly the largest traffic fustercluck in the history of Midtown. Getting a parking place at Midtown Kroger was like winning the lottery. People were coming from all over — tourists from Bartlett and Southaven, and probably from Switzerland and Romania. City traffic personnel were brought in to direct cars in and out of the lot. Both sides of our street were filled with the parked cars of Kroger shoppers. Grocery carts were left on our sidewalks. Worst of all, hundreds of people just ignored the one-way signs (and red lights and stanchions half-way across the street) and drove south on Idlewild.

Yelling “WRONG WAY” at cars became the neighborhood mantra. At first, if you stopped someone and gently told them they were going the wrong way, they’d look embarrassed and surprised and say “Oops, sorry.” Then they started doing it on purpose, and began speeding up the street to avoid being caught. They no longer said “Sorry” when accosted. They said “Bite me,” or worse. It was the wild west on Idlewild.

But after complaints were made to MPD, everything changed. Officers parked on the street every day and began issuing tickets, dozens of tickets. The city of Memphis had to have made thousands of dollars nailing Kroger scofflaws. We residents took to going outside and high-fiving each other and taking photos of the violaters meekly accepting their tickets. Revenge was sweet.

And now? Knock on wood, things finally appear to be normalizing. You can find parking in the Kroger lot most of the time, and Idlewild is calm again, with only the occasional evil-doer driving the wrong way. The new Kroger is a grand and cavernous store with lovely windows that showcase the beautiful Idlewild Presbyterian Church across the street. And there appears, at long last, to be peace in the valley. At least, until the first time snow is predicted.

Categories
Letters To The Editor Opinion

What They Said …

Greg Cravens

On Toby Sells’ cover story “The Urban Child Investment”

But … bu … it’s all for the childruns! Must be good!

ALJ2

ALJ2,

If they threw in puppy adoptions, they might have something there. They could charge billable hours per paw.

crackoamerican

About Jackson Baker’s Politics Blog post “GOP Luminaries Play the Trump Card at Local Banquet” …

[Trump’s] the best thing that ever happened to the Democrats. The vast majority of moderate Republicans know he’s a nut, and they won’t be voting for nut. Gonna hand the election to Hillary.

Chester Jones

Norris says “the people” want straight talk. No they don’t. Trump tells this cohort of the GOP-base what they want to hear: They want to know it’s not their “fault;” it’s the fault of the Other. They want their fears and biases confirmed, and that’s what Trump does to a fault. So, no. They most assuredly don’t want actual “straight talk.”

Packrat

About Frank Murtaugh’s From My Seat post “Memphis Redbirds 2015: Memorable Season or Not?” …

I agree with Frank that it’s questionable at best that the changes made to [AutoZone Park] have improved the park. I certainly don’t think taking away the playground is an improvement. Not only was it the one free thing for small children to enjoy, but it was definitely one of my son’s favorite aspects of going to games. … I also agree that while the new bluffs put fans closer to the game, I fear it’s only a matter of time before a toddler or small child gets beaned by a line-drive foul ball. Fans were farther away from the action on the old bluff, but nobody seemed to mind, and the travel time was long enough for balls headed out there that parents were able to get their kids out of the way. And, lastly, one change that, to me, is definitely not an improvement: the moving of the ticket takers all the way up to the entrance to the stadium versus where they had always been before at the plaza entrance. While seemingly a minor change, at more than one game I went to this year, myself or someone I was with was hit up for money by guys IN THE PLAZA! Being solicited on the sidewalk outside of the stadium is one thing, but this is the kind of experience that might make surburbanites swear off ever coming to a Redbirds game again.

tsunamiroja

About Chris Davis’ Fly on the Wall story “Clean Sweep” …

In the article “Clean Sweep” featured in “The Fly on the Wall,” a woman sweeping the steps of Idlewild Presbyterian Church was highlighted, along with the fact that she was wearing no clothes. “Nobody has satisfactorily explained what she was doing with the milk crate or the bag of Kingsford charcoal pictured below.”

I will explain it quite simply: mental illness, alcoholism, homelessness. And she has a name. Her name is Marilyn.

At Idlewild, we have loved her, fed her, counseled with her, tried to refer her for some help, cautioned her, and have even had to use “tough love” at times. For we dare to believe that beneath all that brokeness is a beloved child of God.

It was disheartening, even shameful at times, to hear the ridicule and the laughter that this evoked, for it is not funny. The homeless and the mentally ill are the lepers of our day, and they are ignored at best, scapegoated, and abused by a narcissistic culture at worst.

Jesus was as clear as day toward the end of his life when he told a parable about what was truly important. “When did we see you hungry … or naked?” Today I hear him asking: “When did we see you mentally ill and homeless? As you did it unto the least of these, our brothers and sisters, you did it to me.”

For we are all broken in one way or the other. Some are able, with our privilege, to hide it better than others.

Stephen R. Montgomery

Pastor, Idlewild Presbyterian Church

Categories
News The Fly-By

Fly on the Wall 1382

Clean Sweep

Traffic slowed to a near halt on Union this weekend when a Midtown woman decided to sweep the stairs of Idlewild Presbyterian Church. It wasn’t the broom that caught motorists’ attention. It was the woman’s choice of attire, which, in this case, was no attire at all. According to reports, Memphis police took the woman to the Regional Medical Center before taking her to jail. Nobody has satisfactorily explained what she was doing with the milk crate or the bag of Kingsford Charcoal pictured below.

Neverending Elvis

Did the ghost of Elvis Presley briefly possess Madonna just at the moment of his passing? According to Joe Henry, Madonna’s songwriting brother-in-law, the King of Rock-and-Roll may have reached out from beyond the grave to give the Material Girl a birthday surprise. Madonna was born on August 16th, and, according to an Elvis Week story published on music-news.com, “when Elvis Presley died on this date in 1977, [Madonna] professed in real-time that she felt his spirit had passed out of his body and through her own in exodus.”

Hair Loss

Fly on the Wall has asked readers to aid us in documenting the lost hairpieces littering the streets of Memphis. Some discoveries are just too important not to share in print. Take, for example, this extremely rare shot of a “scandal weave,” which was discovered in a sack of shredded documents.