Ali Akbar, or Horace Pittman, as he was previously known, died suddenly in late 2009 at the age of 64. That’s too young to die, but even so he was perhaps 20 years older than most people assumed. He would […]

At a recent public forum, citizens and city leaders discussed the several recommendations of the Urban Land Institute’s short study last October. One of them concerned the urban scholars’ impression that Henley Street was a barrier between downtown and seemingly […]

If it had happened in any month other than April, 1865, they say, it would be the legendary American disaster every school kid knew about. It would be the subject of folksongs and novels and movies. But it was the […]

A city as divided as Knoxville is obliged to be polite. Hence there’s never been a Civil War monument downtown. The monuments on the Knox County Courthouse lawn reflect only the pioneer era and the Spanish-American War. It’s a rare Southern […]

For the time being, you can still see where the portraits of John Scruggs Brown and his wife, Carolyn P. Brown, were; they left dark rectangular patches on the paneling in the lobby of the 1954 University Center, which is […]

Go drop in on the University Center. It hasn’t been much heralded, but this month is your last chance to visit a local institution. It’ll be demolished in a few weeks. That’s not news; its demolition was first publicly announced […]

You don’t notice the Greek classicism of Fifth Avenue from the ground. It comes as a surprise when you look to the north from the top of Vine Street. You might think you’ve just sighted Knoxville’s forgotten Acropolis. Seeing it […]

If you’re like me, 1990 may not seem all that long ago. You may have noticed, as I have, that as we get older, the period of time we think of as “recent” gets longer and longer. For me, the […]

It was springtime, and musicians from around the world, from the big cities of the North and from the capitals of Europe, were converging on Gay Street. It exalted the old town in surprising ways. When it was underway, fans […]