photograph by louis tucker
Memphis is a city with great potential — which may sound like a dig, as in, “Wow, for someone with such great potential, she is kind of a mess.” And, yes, my hometown does struggle at times to overcome our underdog crouch, to harness our potential, to transform what could be into what is. Kids growing up here today may have less of a sense than I did, in the Nineties and early Aughts, that the only viable path to success required leaving town as soon as humanly possible, and Downtown developers are certainly banking on the idea that well-compensated young professionals will choose our river bluffs as their launchpads. The Brooks hopes to help magnetize Memphis with its planned 2026 move into a modernist edifice overlooking the Mississippi, while six miles of adjacent riverfront are to be transformed into more alluring public space.
Meanwhile, on Lamar Avenue in Orange Mound, a 70-year-old tower rises above an expanse of low-slung structures. Two sides of the monolith still bear the name and logo (an excavator) of United Equipment, which occupied the building for a time, after it was an animal feed mill and before its 20 years of vacancy. The surrounding lots are lush with weeds, and the property would be the delight of an urban archaeologist.
Two young and ambitious creatives in Memphis have a vision for the tower. Victoria Jones is the executive director of Black arts organization TONE; her co-mastermind James Dukes, a.k.a. IMAKEMADBEATS, is founder/CEO of Memphis record label Unapologetic. Together, the two look at the Orange Mound Tower and see what it could be: a lodestone for a disinvested, majority-Black neighborhood, an engine for entrepreneurship, a hub for the arts. And while their vision has yet to be fully realized, it’s well past the phase of “such great potential.” (Since we completed the print version of this month's magazine, the New York Times featured Jones and Dukes in a story on the front page of its Business section.)
Jones and Dukes have elevated Memphis culture for years, together and individually — and they’ve secured significant investment already for the project, which they plan to fill with a mix of office, apartment, and retail space, as well as an arts incubator, recording studios, and a performance venue. Think Crosstown Concourse but vertical, and in one of the poorest ZIP codes in the state, in the country.
I would argue that reimagining what’s already in front of us can be more challenging than dreaming up what isn’t; reality gets in the way. I would also argue that the work of reimagining is our city’s specialty, our greatest idea export, and certainly a trademark of Victoria Jones and IMAKEMADBEATS.
Then think about what the Orange Mound Tower could mean — for the neighborhood and for Memphis, but for other cities, too. Instead of tearing down what was and building in its place, Jones and Dukes are infusing something new into the cracked pieces of the past. I would argue that reimagining what’s already in front of us can be more challenging than dreaming up what isn’t; reality gets in the way. I would also argue that the work of reimagining is our city’s specialty, our greatest idea export, and certainly a trademark of Victoria Jones and IMAKEMADBEATS.
photograph by chris mccoy
Which is why they are, jointly, Memphis magazine’s Memphians of the Year for 2021. This is the first year we’ve honored two Memphians of the Year instead of a single person. For that matter, it’s also the first time in our MOY series, which began in 2013, that the cover story has been written by two people: My thanks to Alex Greene and Chris McCoy for collaborating to tell this story of collaboration. (You can read that story online tomorrow, December 2, as well as in our December print edition.)
When considering this year’s honoree(s), we, in consultation with insightful community members, compiled a list of impressive individuals. A few fell into the lifetime-achievement category; others have been involved in our city’s ongoing Covid-19 response in various ways, or in environmental-justice work. Every person, every initiative discussed is worthy of recognition. In the end, we settled on Jones and Dukes for several reasons.
First and perhaps most significantly, the Orange Mound Tower project represents how Memphis can reimagine our liabilities as assets — how we can turn the chips on our shoulders into building blocks. Next, their vision can help make Memphis an example for how cities might evolve organically, creatively, in tune with their existing people and places.
But most of all, this: Looking at an abandoned shell of an 80,000-square-foot warehouse and seeing a thriving community magnet — a certain amount of audacity is needed to make the leap. Call it swagger. And what could be more Memphis?
