Rubber Sole

The Blog comes you to you this week from the Project Pop-Up Grand Opening in the 800 block of Chestnut Street. While this a fantastic event and a lot of fun, I will remember it for another reason. After shaking hands with assorted VIPs and a couple of buddies, I turned around to walk back to the Retrospective space...and the bottom of my shoe fell off. I was slightly embarrassed, but more pissed because I love those shoes. Fortunately, there was a full bottle of super glue and a can of spray mount lying about, so I MacGyvered a solution. Nothing more to say about that other than the opening of Project Pop-Up will be forever linked to the loss of my sole. (ba dum bump) 

Only one shoe was harmed in the making of this post

I am chuffed that efforts are being made to bring the first floor of My Favorite Building back to life (you should go read that post if you haven’t already). Due to the fact that I have only one fully functional shoe and that I reek of an early Friday cigar, I’ve sequestered myself inside the retrospective to simultaneously attend to guests and write this post. As I was trying to figure out what to write about, I overheard a couple of humdingers from retrospective patrons. I was going to simply post a list of quotes Overheard at the Retrospective, but after writing the full list, I came off a bit like Mitt Romney, so perhaps that’s not the way to go. I will, however, leave you with a few jewels Overheard at the Retrospective:

“Yeah, I told my parents I wanted to be an architect, but Mom said I had to go to college for that, so I was like ‘fuck that’, right?”

“you know what I think should be everywhere? Amphitheaters.”

“I could not be an architect to save my life.”

“man. There is sooooooo much this city could do.”

As I have been fond of saying in this space, there is no finish line for the journey of city-building. There is no finished state for us to achieve. There is only constant and continual change that we can hope to influence that will result in a city that expresses our values. That goes for buildings as well as cities. A building is not finished after it is designed and constructed – indeed, its life has only begun. It is the up to the owner and users of the builders to determine what type of life if will have. In this case, the River City Company, Berry & Hunt and their partners are taking an active role to try to breathe new life into a great building that has the potential to make a great impact in that portion of downtown. In the same way that our friends are addressing a problem in a building for its benefit and the greater benefit of the district, so can we address problems with our districts for the benefit of downtown, and downtown for the benefit of the region.

Hmmm… a collaborative public-private partnership that focuses its efforts and resources to solve a specific, well-defined problem…seems like I’ve heard that one before…oh yeah, that’s The Chattanooga Way.