From Saturday's ride-about

Top photo: Jim Elliot Rd
2nd photo: Oak leaves turning brown instead of normal red/bronze
3rd photo: Elizabethton viewed from Cripple Creek Loop
4th photo: Monte Vista cemetery
5th photo: Oak leaves turning yellow instead of normal red/bronze
6th photo: Monte Vista cemetery

Urban Renewal

Bus stop


I feel somewhat better this day; some of the soreness has left my fingers and knees, but now I have a lot of chest congestion, a malady which many other people seem to have. Carolyn is still shaking off the flu, and it is difficult to stop her from her daily activities anyway. She had to work yesterday, and I spent the day either in bed or in front of the tv; neither is a desireable place in such beautiful warm weather as we have had since Friday. It is supposed to get back to winter by the coming weekend.
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Saturday we went out to try and find some photo opportunities, but I became so ill it was nearly impossible for me to lift the camera. I was bound and determined to get us away from the house for awhile, so I drove the back roads to Mountain City and then on to Trade and over the border into North Carolina. I hit some back roads there and then returned to Mountain City and on to Damascus, Virginia. From there, I drove to Abingdon and back home via Bristol and Watauga Flats. It has been 15 years or longer since I was in the Abingdon area, and my how it has grown. Driving on I-81 there is much like driving I-40 in Knoxville. That is another thing that makes me wonder about the viability of Johnson City (JC) as being the commercial leader of the Tri-Cities for much longer. I can see JC quickly becoming a bedroom community for dieing people; people like myself that are past retirement age and do not have a lot of years left.
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Speaking of JC, I read where the Johnson City Development Authority (JCDA) has convinced our wise city leaders to purchase the old Young's Tobacco Warehouse, so it can be demolished and a "green strip" leading to downtown put in its place. Young's is the long building that lies between the Norfolk-Southern Railroad and Lamont Street near downtown. The structure was built in a fashion so that it is curved just like the railroad tracks. After its days as a tobacco warehouse had passed, some of it was used by Faircloth Chevrolet and then Sherwood Chevrolet as an indoor showroom and auto body shop. Another part of the building was used as an Allis-Chalmers tractor dealership for many years, then the White family from Erwin used it as a warehouse for their grocery store chain.

I understand the warehouse is deteriorating from years of neglect, but as far as I can tell, it has yet to become an eyesore or a public nuisance. It wil probably make a nice green area, even though it is jammed against the busy RR tracks on one side and the street on the other. There is a small creek that runs in a culvert beneath the building, and opening it up may help alleviate some of the downtown flooding. Eventually, I can see the little used portion of Lamont Street being closed and more property being purchased on the other side of it.

What makes me mad about the whole thing is JCDA always getting its way with the city commission. Together they have wasted millions of taxpayer dollars in downtown rejuvenation over the past three decades, and nothing has come of it except one block of Main Street has become partially developed, and several beautiful, old structures like the Majestic Theater and the Arcade building have been demolished. JCDA's biggest claim to fame is the Public Library being built near downtown; not in downtown. The library sits near the top of a hill overlooking the old city center, and was an overly-expensive thing to build, it is modernistic, ugly and not conforming to the main theme of renewal which is the old Johnson's Depot after which the town is named.

Furthermore, JCDA just recently convinced the city to purchase the old Interstate Foundry land and adjoining properties to develop as apartments. This tract includes a beautiful green area containg the same creek that runs under the Young property. Many critters—mostly ducks—call this home. Even if it still exists after the huge apartment complex is completed, it will not be the same.Technorati Tags: JCDA, Johnson City Tenn

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Arcade Barber Shop 1981 ... now demolished


What a gloriously frigid day, and tomorrow promises to be more than glorious with daytime temps staying in the twenties and Friday will be a piece of Heaven with a high of twenty-two degrees. Hit me with your best shot Old Man Winter 'cause I know Spring is nipping at your heels!
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Ah! There is a wonderful cat fight going on in the Tennessee legislature. The Republican majority isn't getting its way and is in a snit! I love it!
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Rumor says the city's only K-Mart Super Center is closing its doors. It was built in 1994, and Carolyn did construction cleanup there before it opened.
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The old Snap-On Tools building has been purchased by a Michigan company and will be used primarily for distribution of marble counter-top products manufactured up north. Few locals will be employed.
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Here is another negative side to living in a small city: Ritz Camera has closed its doors in the JC Mall. Hopefully it will relocate to one of the strip malls, but it is doubtful. There are no other dedicated photography stores in the area as far as I know.
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The Johnson City Development Authority (JCDA) is looking for more tax payer money to waste on "revitalizing" downtown. They are up in arms and saying downtown has a reputation of being an unsavory place for people to visit and shop.

A few thoughts:

• JCDA has had decades and plenty of dollars to address this "problem"
• Why would anyone want to visit downtown ... there is little to see and even less to do
  
• Some of the most historic and interesting buildings (the Arcade building and the Majestic Theater) have been demolished to get rid of "undesirables"
• JCDA cannot seem to finish any project in a timely manner
• The projects JCDA does finish were useless from conception to completion and wind up unused or underused
• JCDA's crowning glory is the gaudy public library and it needed to be built a lot less extravagantly and in another location
• The core problems that JCDA was created to address have been given little consideration except for a lot of money wasted on "studies"
• JCDA hires many outside consultants but ignores all but the ones that tell them what they want to hear
  
• JCDA's highest priority is making nothing from something
  
• JCDA is downtown's and the city-in-general's biggest problem

Carolyn has a couple of accounts downtown, and one of them has been with her for 11 years. She or one-or-more of her employees are in downtown five nights each week, and over all these years, she has had no serious problems. They once heard a gunshot; they were once approached by a panhandler, and one time they saw a man taking a leak outside a tavern. Gun shots can be heard in any part of any town at just about anytime; I've been approaced by panhandlers in front of the mall and elsewhere; external tavern walls make wonderful urinals; it is life!

JCDA needs to be done away with, and the city needs to either make a commitment to fixing what is left of downtown, or to bulldozing it under.

Amen
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