photograph courtesy kirkisis / istock
The late Jim Dickinson wasn’t just a legendary musician and producer. He possessed a passionate — and provocative — mastery of the meaning of Memphis music, its authenticity, and warned against reducing Beale Street to nostalgia and a branding hook for tourists.
He earned the right to his opinion. After all, it was sought by national music journalists and even Martin Scorsese for his documentary series about the blues. Music greats sought him out to play with them — from Albert King and Aretha Franklin to the Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan. Dickinson’s genre-bending band, Mud Boy & The Neutrons, was nothing less than the “missing link between Furry Lewis and the Rolling Stones,” according to author and documentarian Robert Gordon.
In 1979, with Beale Street a largely abandoned ghost town, Dickinson produced the masterpiece album, Beale Street Saturday Night. Listening to it now, it is compelling evidence for his case that these were the music and musicians this mythic music street should spotlight.
At the time, Beale Street could pass for an archaeological site. It was in shambles and city government pursued urban renewal and development as the answers to its future. Dickinson insisted that the bedrock of the street’s authenticity should be Black music and culture to achieve what Rufus Thomas promised: “If you were Black for one night on Beale Street, you would never want to be white again.”
Until he died in 2009, Dickson continued to sound the alarm about Beale Street losing its soul in a battle between authenticity and real estate development.
Entertainment districts are treated as magic answers for cities across the country looking to jumpstart their downtown economies, but they are hardly a sure thing. Many suffer from homogenization with identical corporate chains and architecture.
Almost 50 years later, that fundamental, underlying question remains and today it is fueled by $74 million in state funding: Do the current plans for Beale Street risk the street’s authenticity in pursuit of it becoming a twenty-first-century entertainment district?
The Downtown Memphis Commission, which is charged with management of Beale Street, announced the state money will be spent on safety enhancements and to create a welcoming experience within the Beale Street Historic District. The boundaries for the work suggest the prime motivator for the funding is the Memphis Grizzlies.
Within the area marked for improvements are the areas bordering FedExForum on the north and west plus Beale Street from Second to B.B. King Boulevard. Not included is the north side of Beale Street between B.B. King Boulevard and Fourth Street, the section of the street long overdue for help.
The Downtown Memphis Commission said upgrades include street lane reductions, better sidewalks, upgraded street lighting, new landscaping and hardscaping features, community spaces for music and events, and new public bathrooms.
The $74 million represents one of the largest investments in the historic district in its history, but infrastructure is only one piece of the puzzle. There are the safety concerns amplified by the media (although only 3 percent of the total crimes in Memphis happen in the 38103 ZIP code). There are underused and uncared for historic buildings owned by City of Memphis, inconsistent programming, bureaucratic contract approvals, management inexperienced in operations of historic entertainment districts, and the sense that the district is underactivated outside of peak tourism periods.
The planned investments aren’t glamorous. Better lighting doesn’t inspire ribbon cuttings and better sidewalks don’t normally generate viral excitement. That said, effective urban districts need to be safe, connected, walkable, and comfortable, areas where Memphis has often underinvested. Even today, visitors to downtown are familiar with uneven sidewalks, weak lighting, and substandard landscaping and hardscaping.
However, City Hall’s ambition for Beale Street is to create positive impressions and the main one being sought is from the Memphis Grizzlies. It is said in City Hall that plans and changes to Beale Street require the stamp of approval from the NBA team. The mayor’s preoccupation and rhetoric about Beale Street are about sending a message to the Grizzlies that city government is doing all it can to improve the area for people attending its games. Coupled with the $550 million for arena renovations, the hope is to get the team to sign a new contract sooner rather than later to remain in Memphis.
Often lost in these conversations is the fact that the State of Tennessee estimates Beale Street has five million visitors a year — or eight times more people than fans attending Grizzlies games.
So, what exactly should Beale Street be?
Entertainment districts are treated as magic answers for cities across the country looking to jumpstart their downtown economies, but they are hardly a sure thing. Many suffer from homogenization with identical corporate chains and architecture. New Orleans, Austin, and Memphis are often cited as exceptions to the urban cloning trap by leaning into authenticity.
It’s Beale Street’s competitive advantage; however, that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t need more diversity in its tenant mix and programming, stronger local musician pipelines, family-friendly attractions during the day, and greater connectivity with nearby assets.
For decades, downtown has been disconnected islands of assets: Beale Street, the National Civil Rights Museum and South Main, The Edge District and Sun Studio, Tom Lee Park and the riverfront, and the convention center. If the money from state government could improve pedestrian movement and greater integration between the assets, the return on investment would be much more than a few blocks of nightlife.
The Memphis mindset about downtown fluctuates between defensive boosterism and relentless pessimism. The Beale Street funding offers an opportunity to think bigger if the vision about Beale Street is about more than avoiding decline and making the Grizzlies happy.
That’s why the larger debate shouldn’t be about infrastructure. It should be about vision.
The question ultimately is whether Memphis has the imagination to match this historic investment with a historic vision, maybe just maybe, one that Dickinson might have endorsed.
Tom Jones is the principal of Smart City Consulting, which specializes in strategic communications, public policy development, and strategic planning. He tends the 20-year-old Smart City Memphis blog and is an author with experience in local government. He can be reached at tjones@ smartcityconsulting.com
