Knoxville Perambulations

Quite a bit of ground covered today in Knoxville with a walk of over 4 1/2 hours. I walked up to the Harold Lambert Overlook Park, which is across the street from my mom's and sister's apartment. This is where the Civil War era Union fort, Fort Dickerson was located. The views across the river are obscured by the luxuriant summer growth, but it was a nice hike up and I learned a fair bit about the siege of Knoxville by Confederacy forces. I then walked downtown, stopping frequently to take photographs of various architectural details as is my wont.


Since I had ample time to cogitate, I was struck as I always am when I cross the South Gay Street Bridge on foot by the thought that I can't imagine a more thorough bungling of riverfront property than in Knoxville. Building an expressway right next to the riverside and having only one pedestrian bridge for access from downtown is just about the height of stupidity, especially since there is frantic development downtown gutting old buildings and putting in lofts. What a waste of real estate and a sad reflection of the overwhelming influence of car culture.


I worked my way up Gay Street, and I finally ended up in an alley between an abandoned building that I was taking photos of and a building that apparently houses the printing press that churns out University of Tennessee t-shirts. There was a gentleman there who was sitting in the shade, and it looked like he had been there a while, given the number of empties he had next to him. He asked me not to take his photo, which is natural, given that he was drinking in an alley. He didn't look homeless; rather, he looked like he just wanted a quiet place to drink. We chatted for a while about various things. For a man in a deserted alley, he seemed eager to talk, telling me of his sexual exploits in Vietnam while he was there during the war.


After excusing myself, I walked back up the street to purchase an iced coffee, my summertime drug of choice, and walked across Gay Street to pop into Yee Haw Industries, a self-described industrial letterpress. I really like their Southern influenced design work, and it's a shame that I'm so skint at the moment, otherwise there were several extraordinary posters I would have walked out with. This poster for a Freakwater show is just wonderful. They have a nice storefront, which I neglected to take a picture of.