Travel: Chattanooga

The same state, but a different world.

by

On the Waterfront

It’s a sunny afternoon and the Chattanooga riverfront is packed with people. Some meander along the Riverwalk, a series of paths along the southern bank of the Tennessee River. Below, paddlers navigate the gentle currents. A pontoon boat filled with swimsuited partiers bellies up to the dock, the only visible sign of civilization on wooded Maclellan Island. Above, the Walnut Street Bridge is alive with activity.

Built in 1891, the Walnut Street Bridge was the first non-military road bridge across the Tennessee River. It was closed to traffic in 1978, a casualty of Downtown’s long downward spiral. The bridge’s conversion to a pedestrian span in the early 2000s was one of the harbingers of change for the better.

The riverfront in Chattanooga sets the tone for Downtown in a way that Memphis can only aspire to.

On the bluff overlooking the bridge is the Hunter Museum of American Art. The institution’s exterior traces the last century of the city’s history. At the center is a neoclassical mansion built in 1905 for insurance magnate Ross Faxon. On the east side is a concrete brutalist addition to the museum built in the 1970s. Nearest the Walnut Street Bridge is the West Wing. The postmodern design, with curling roof clad in shiny zinc and glass exterior walls that invite light into a sprawling interior atrium, was the Hunter’s $22 million contribution to the Chattanooga riverfront project that transformed Downtown.

This fall, the museum is celebrating itself with an exhibit exploring its history and the legacy of its founding benefactor, George Thomas Hunter, who was one of the original bottlers of Coca-Cola. Also opening in October is “Noel W. Anderson: The Blak Origin Moment.” Anderson’s textile art uses found images of black men from media and distorts them until they are unrecognizable to comment on the shameful legacy of media outlets perpetuating racial stereotypes. It’s especially fitting that the Louisville native’s work is being featured at this spot on the Chattanooga riverfront. The Walnut Street Bridge was originally built to connect Chattanooga with the North Shore, then a predominantly black town. Today, Chattanooga’s population is about 30 percent African American.

In front of the Tennessee Aquarium, the tents of an arts and crafts fair dot the carefully manicured public space. Inside, there are so many people crowded around the towering transparent tanks that it’s sometimes hard to move. Kids’ jaws drop as sharks circle overhead. Visitors press their faces against the glass to get a better look at the pulsating jellyfish, transformed into psychedelic ghosts by carefully designed lighting. At the peak of the aquarium’s Ocean Journey building, the Butterfly Garden, one of my personal favorite spaces in all of Tennessee, is alive with flapping wings. Kids chase after the colorful sprites, and their parents chase after them to try and enforce the aquarium’s “no grabbing” rule.

The riverfront in Chattanooga sets the tone for Downtown in a way that Memphis can only aspire to. Both cities spent decades building up their centers, then decades watching them crumble. Both cities began to turn around at approximately the same time, the turn of the twenty-first century. Memphis’ Downtown revitalization has taken many forms; tens of thousands of people now live in spaces that were vacant wastelands less than 20 years ago. But we have continued to struggle to make use of what should be one of our greatest civic assets, the Mississippi riverfront.

“How do we make this a great city? We’re going to focus on the cultural institutions as the cornerstone of that effort.”

Chattanooga, on the other hand, started with the riverfront and worked outward. First, they unflinchingly confronted a dark part of their history. Ross’ Landing was the eastern beginning of the Trail of Tears, where the Cherokee expelled from East Tennessee and Georgia by Andrew Jackson began their involuntary journey to Oklahoma. The Ross’ Landing monument memorializes the awful moment with a long, gentle waterfall. Artwork by a collective of Cherokee artists called Gadugi tells the story of the Native Americans who lived in the region, tried to assimilate, but who ultimately paid the price for American progress.

Beyond the somber beauty of Ross’ Landing, the Riverwalk offers nooks and crannies for exploration, such as a small amphitheater tucked beneath a sheltering bluff. The riverwalk area came about because of a coordinated capital campaign between the Hunter Museum of American Art, the Tennessee Aquarium, and the Creative Discovery Museum, who pooled their resources and came up with $150 million to transform the area. One of the main innovations that made the riverfront such a success was prioritizing pedestrians over cars, says Stacy Richardson, chief of staff for Chattanooga mayor Andy Berke.

“The main road that intersects between our Downtown and our waterfront is Highway 58. When they did the twenty-first-century riverfront plan, a good part of it was about downsizing that road — giving it a road diet,” says Richardson. “Now, it’s a single, cohesive experience from the Hunter to Downtown to the waterfront, so you can stroll and feel comfortable. We not only doubled down on physical space, we doubled down on cultural institutions. How do we make this a great city? We’re going to focus on the cultural institutions as the cornerstone of that effort.”

The Poet Whisperer

Erika Roberts is a poet, mother of two, grandmother of two, and a lifelong Chattanoogan. She remembers the bad old days. “Downtown was not a fun place to go when I was younger. If you did, people looked at you like, ‘What?’” she says. “Those of us who remember it, love it even more. We’ve seen its growth, and we’re like, ‘Yes! This child has grown up to be great!’ Sometimes I just walk Downtown. I don’t have any destination meant. I just walk, sit at a bus stop, and listen to the conversations. It’s like a soundtrack of life Downtown.”

Roberts calls herself a creative. She says she’s seen an explosive growth in the population of people like her: painters, writers, and tech workers of a creative bent attracted to the area in the last few years. She’s sometimes known as “The Poet Whisperer” for her knack for getting people together, and creating scenes that encourage creativity, with shows at places like The Palace Theater. Chattanooga’s revitalization “has allowed the creatives to be creative. It has given us places to be creative in. It’s not abnormal.”

The Palace Theater is located on the ground floor of the Tomorrow Building, one of Downtown Chattanooga’s premier examples of creative re-use. “There was no one here who thought there was any way you could renovate that building, which has been rotting for decades,” says Ann Coulter, an urban planning consultant who grew up in Chattanooga.

Ted Alling, Barry Large, and Allan Davis, Chattanooga logistics entrepreneurs who created a Downtown startup incubator, invested $8 million in the four-story, 120-year-old former hotel to create a unique co-living space designed to attract the young and tech-savvy. Coulter sees it as one of the great success stories of the last decade. All cities want growth and new investment, but that often comes with a loss of civic character, as historic buildings are sacrificed to the high-rise cult of glass and steel. “Comparing us to Nashville, their pace of growth has worked against re-use,” Coulter says. “Everybody seems to be in such a rush to get the next big project done. We’ve had the benefit of a little bit slower timeframe for Downtown redevelopment. We still occasionally lose something, but we’ve had people put more money into building redevelopment that makes any kind of economic sense. People know that. I wouldn’t say it necessarily sets a standard, but it does move the bar higher for the next one.”

The Great Clean-Up

The biggest reason young people have been flocking to Chattanooga in recent years is its natural beauty. But it wasn’t always like that. In 1969, an EPA official told Walter Cronkite that Chattanooga was the dirtiest city in America. A combination of mining and metal smelting and the city’s famed railroad hub had polluted the skies, water, and land.

“We had made a city unlovable, and we were well on the way to making it unlivable.”

“Because the city is down in a bowl, the greatest concentration of heavy industry was also the greatest concentration of cars and trucks,” says Coulter. “There were no pollution controls on any of that stuff. And when the pollution would come out of the plants and out of the cars, it didn’t go anywhere. It just stayed in the valley.”

The city took Cronkite’s report as a wake-up call. “It wasn’t just the pollution. It was the dead Downtown, too,” says Coulter. “We had made a city unlovable, and we were well on the way to making it unlivable.”

Coulter says cleaning up the polluters uncovered the area’s natural beauty. “Younger generations seem to look as much for the quality of life they want to live away from work as they do at work opportunities. And we look pretty good in that way.”

Developer Ken Hays, who recently stepped down as chairman of the Chattanooga Enterprise Center, says, “One of the things that has really put us on the map is our outdoors. You can go out rafting, canoeing, and kayaking. Bob Corker, when he was mayor, put a strong focus on promoting and organizing our outdoor community. … These developments weren’t necessarily to bring tourists in. They were just for the locals. If you make life better for the local community, the tourists will come. That’s happened.

“If you go to a lot of these bigger cities, it could be anywhere,” he continues. “We’re trying to be unique and keep that character. Be Chattanooga. There’s been a lot of focus on technology and innovation. There were some stories that said we were the next Silicon Valley. That’s not the case. You are who you are.”

The Grand Canyon of Tennessee

Chattanooga is amazing, in that you have every possible outdoor activity available to you here,” says Captain Matt Schubert. “You’ve got more trailheads within 20 miles of this city than anywhere else in the country. You can go fishing, paddle boarding, kayaking, whitewater rafting, rock climbing, any of the above. If you like outdoor stuff, this is the place to be. And it’s close to everything — two hours to Atlanta, two hours to Nashville, two hours to Knoxville, two hours to the Smoky Mountains, two hours to Huntsville, five hours to the beach.”

Schubert commands the Southern Belle riverboat, which plies the Tennessee River to give tourists and locals the best views of the city. A typical trip in the daytime lasts about 90 minutes, with lunch and a tour. Dinner cruises last longer, and include live entertainment. But the must-do trip is the fall leaf cruise, which is just coming into season.

“Just below us is the Grand Canyon of the Tennessee, the River Gorge. Between October 1st and November 15th, we do a three-hour day trip down into the canyon. It’s beautiful. Right around the end of October, the leaves tend to peak. We’ve had so much rain this year that the leaves are going to be brilliant. It’s a great year for a gorge leaf cruise.”

A Walk in the Woods

I’m climbing up rugged Stringer’s Ridge with Jenny Park, Tennessee state director of the Trust for Public Land (TPL). The trailhead where we started this wooded journey is only minutes away from her offices on Chattanooga’s North Shore. Not long ago, this natural area was the crosshairs of developers seeking to profit from the influx of people.

“The developer was going to build some high-density condos,” Park says. “Residents got mad, because they were seeing Chattanooga changing already.”

TPL, a national nonprofit which has been operating in Chattanooga for 25 years, stepped in to preserve the land and create park space. “This is protected forever,” says Park. “It can be used only for light recreation and conservation. It was a big win for Chattanooga, because it started with a grass-roots effort to prevent something from happening that a lot of the city didn’t feel like was the right thing.”

Today, 23 miles of greenway snake around the area, connecting the city with forests, mountains, and rivers.

When we pause for a drink of water at an overlook providing a spectacular view of the city, we meet Elliot Stahl, walking the trails with his friendly dog. Stahl worked for the U.S. Geological Survey in Atlanta before moving to Chattanooga three years ago. Now he manages The Crash Pad, a hostel for climbers in the heart of Downtown. “This has always been my destination city, because I’m really into caving,” he says. “It’s a hotbed, because we’re right in the middle of TAG [the area where Tennessee, Alabama, and Georgia meet]. Some of the best caves in the country are right here. Then I got into climbing, too, so it’s just the perfect place for me to live.”

Of the hundreds of caves that riddle the karst topography of TAG, Stahl says his favorite is Ellison’s Cave, the second-deepest in North America. “It’s got a 500-foot rappel next to a waterfall. At the bottom is a mile of beautiful passage to the other side of the mountain, where there’s another 400-foot pit. It’s one of the most exceptional caves in the country, and it’s right here.”

Today, 23 miles of greenway snake around the area, connecting the city with forests, mountains, and rivers. The South Chickamauga Creek Greenway, which includes a spectacular stretch of elevated walkway, is the final, 12-mile piece of the puzzle connecting these trails. TPL considers it their crowning achievement.

But just because you build it doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll come. “There’s a perception which I feel is really unhealthy that the outdoors are for wealthy white people,” says Park. ”If that’s who is actually using places like Stringer’s Ridge, that’s even more of a problem that should be addressed. We know there are a lot of historic reasons why African Americans in particular haven’t felt comfortable recreating outdoors. I feel a responsibility to do what I can with my organization to provide more access and opportunities for enjoying nature in communities that are very different from one another. … We’ve got neighborhoods that are half a mile from the river, but the kids haven’t been to the Riverwalk. We partnered with an after-school program that takes kids to parks. They love it! They were just in a different world. And it’s in their backyard!”

Choo Choo Me Home

There are literally thousands of songs about Memphis, but only one famous one about Chattanooga. Glenn Miller and the Andrews Sisters made “The Chattanooga Choo Choo” into a monster swing hit a few months before America entered World War II. Then, tens of thousands of travelers went through Terminal Station in Downtown Chattanooga. In 1973, after the railroads abandoned this hub, Terminal Station became the city’s first historic preservation project. Now the Chattanooga Choo Choo Hotel is a center of activity in Downtown, with restaurants, retail, and even an arcade, well stocked with classic and contemporary video games that ate an embarrassingly large amount of this columnist’s quarters.

Close by is the Terminal Brewhouse, one of several craft brew pubs that have flourished in the city. The Terminal Brewhouse’s vertically oriented architecture makes it a spectacular space in which to quaff a sampler flight of the beer brewed on-site. The menu is much more extensive than you find in most brew pub situations, with a smashed pepper steak and salmon marinated in the brewery’s White Shadow Belgian Wit on the high end. There’s also a selection of beer-friendly pizzas. I choose the “Galactically Famous” bison burger with a side of chipotle baked beans.

As the night gains steam, many well-heeled professionals head for the lobby bar at The Moxy. The long, moodily lit bar features an outdoor area that is teeming with life on a temperate weekend night. Other Chattanooga regulars head for the Pickle Barrel, the venerable watering hole that has been a fixture for decades. The flatiron-style, three-story restaurant and bar — once the site of Jimmy Hoffa’s favorite restaurant—has the most charming patio experience in the city. Inside, they’ve been serving shots backed with pickle juice way before it became fashionable elsewhere.

Chattanoogan Spirit

If you’re looking for a place to stay, I can’t recommend The Chattanoogan highly enough. The city’s premier luxury hotel features spacious, well-appointed rooms and a spa that sprawls over the second floor, including a workout room and indoor pool with jacuzzi. Three restaurants grace the property: the Broad Street Grill, with an award-winning weekend brunch; The Foundry, where you can get a steak and hand-crafted cocktail; and Stroud’s Sidewalk Cafe, where you can grab a quick bite on your way out the door to explore the Moon Pie General Store.

Chattanooga FC is the pride of the city, and representative of its innovative, can-do spirit. This mountain town is an unlikely place to find a championship soccer team, but it has been flourishing for a decade, seemingly willed into existence.

Situated on Broad not far from the Creative Discovery Museum, the Moon Pie General Store has all the flavors you didn’t know the quintessentially Southern snack cake came in. While browsing the aisles, I run into Phil D’Amico, goalie for Chattanooga FC. The city’s soccer club, I had heard, is a point of pride. “The community is the reason why we have a club,” he says. “If it wasn’t there, we wouldn’t be as successful as we are.”

As I shake his hand, I want to wish him luck, but my performing-arts background unexpectedly kicks in, and I hear myself say, “Break a leg!”

Of course, the last thing you want to wish on an elite footballer is a femur fracture. Fortunately, he laughs at my gaff, before pointing at me and saying, “If I break a leg tonight, I’m coming for you.”

He needn’t have worried. The minor-league team plays at Finley Stadium, a short walk from The Chattanoogan. Where most teams in their league play in high school stadia, Chattanooga FC regularly attracts big crowds. I watch the team romp over Asheville City 3-1, egged on by the rabid fan club known as The Chattahooligans.

Chattanooga FC is the pride of the city, and representative of its innovative, can-do spirit. This mountain town is an unlikely place to find a championship soccer team, but it has been flourishing for a decade, seemingly willed into existence. I think back earlier to my breakfast with poet Erika Roberts. “I think creativity is a currency, and people are starting to recognize its value,” she told me. “If I can, you can. If you can, they can. I’m forever saying: Create what you don’t see. If you want to see something happen, and you don’t see it happening, go make it happen.”

Chattanooga’s Broadband Experiment

Ask the young people who have been coming to Chattanooga how they found the place, and odds are they’ll answer, “I saw it on the internet.”

Chattanooga has the fastest and most reliable internet service in America, thanks to the public utility EPB. It began, says Rick Hitchcock of Chambliss, Bahner & Stophel, outside legal counsel for EPB, when the utility upgraded the electrical grid. Fiber-optic cable was strung alongside the electrical wires to allow computer coordination of the distribution of power. But there was a lot more bandwidth than needed for that purpose. “The communications use of excess fiber capacity was not the primary purpose for building the fiber,” says Hitchcock. “The fiber side pays the electric side for access to the fiber, which is an electric system asset. As a result of that payment for use of excess capacity on the electric system fiber, the fiber business is supporting lower electric rates in the community.”

In addition to lowering electric rates up to 7 percent, EPB’s broadband service offers its customers speeds up to three times faster than what is commercially available in Memphis. This has led to a businesses relocating to Chattanooga to take advantage of the state-of-the-art system. “But there were naysayers,” he says. “There were predictors of great doom. But none of that came true. It’s been wildly successful.”