rendering by studio gang | courtesy riverfront development corporation
An overview rendering shows the proposed riverfront development concepts.
The riverfront is getting a makeover, as happens every decade or so. As a reporter, I covered the opening of Mud Island, the construction and opening of The Pyramid, the closing of The Pyramid, its reopening as Bass Pro, the construction of Tom Lee Park and Beale Street Landing, Harbor Town, the Bluff Walk, the pedestrian bridge, and Van Morrison’s performance at MusicFest, possibly the worst concert I have ever heard.
Some of these things were better than the others, and whatever their shortcomings and cost overruns, they made Memphis a more interesting place. The grand pronouncements and projections were usually wrong, but there was always a truth-teller in the mix if you looked hard enough. Here’s what some of them said, as best I can remember or document:
“Attractions based on history are not commercially successful.” It was 1982, and City Councilman J.O. Patterson was planning to run for mayor when he said this about Mud Island in response to my throwaway question at the end of an interview. Patterson, a minister and thoughtful sort, favored a big amusement park on Mud Island instead. Ferris wheel, roller coaster, the works. We will never know if that would have worked, but we know what didn’t work.
“Could you say ‘too much space’?” The county engineer was leading some bigwigs on a tour of the unfinished Pyramid in 1989 when he pointed out that “there’s a lot of space” as if everyone hadn’t noticed. The skeptic was William Ferris, a lawyer, Democratic Party kingpin, and reluctant supporter of the enterprise that put 20,000 seats sloping steeply downward in a building sloping steeply upward. Ferris was not alone. County Commissioner Vasco Smith pointed out that the site was “down in a hole” as opposed to up on the South Bluff where idea man John Burton Tigrett had envisioned it. As real estate agents say: location, location, location. While this switcheroo made the South Bluffs development possible it also ensured that The Pyramid would never be a landmark on the order of the St. Louis Arch but might become a white elephant or a Bass Pro superstore.
“I want my crystal skull back.” Or words to that effect, said Tigrett’s son Isaac in 1991 after county officials found one hidden in a sealed box in the apex of The Pyramid. To make a long story short, the devotee of Indian guru Sri Baba was sore that, among other things, his plan for a Hard Rock Cafe was scrapped. If your beliefs run to the mystical, The Pyramid has been cursed ever since.
“The real reason South Bluffs and Harbor Town are so good is not because Jack Belz and I are great guys, but because we saw how hard the market was and knew we had to overcompensate.” Developer Henry Turley said this in 1996 when the number of residents on Mud Island was not even half what it is today. But the future of downtown Memphis as a residential and tourism place instead of a business district was already clear.
“It [Tom Lee Park] is the worst river park in America.” This is the sort of thing a troll or snarky columnist might say. But the critic was Benny Lendermon, head of the celebrity-studded Riverfront Development Corporation (RDC), also known, snarkily, as the Retired Directors Club for its popularity as a landing place for city division directors. Tom Lee Park was expanded by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers as a buffer for Riverside Drive and, as a bonus, extension of a small park. Only later did it become the site of the music festival and barbecue contest that strip it bare and ugly every May. Sunsets, sod, benches, sidewalks, and accessibility mainly compensate for that.
Planting more trees and putting the squeeze on Memphis in May don’t strike me as especially original or radical ideas, but it beats publicly moaning about the “worst river park in America” when you are vested with the authority to do something about it. That included Beale Street Landing with its restaurant (since closed) and lego-blocks signature building. Never was an organization more deserving of being disbanded, and by the time you read this, Carol Coletta will not only be the new president but may have given it a new name and mission.
