Saturday, October 11, 2008

Underground Level

Welcome to Underground Knoxville. The tour begins in a graffiti-covered passage in what was once the street level outside the Emporium building on the 100 block of Gay Street. Local developer David Dewhirst, who owns a number of the buildings on this block, explains the history of Underground Knoxville to members of Knox Heritage preservation group. He spearheaded a campaign to preserve and renovate these weird spaces that are part of Knoxville's history.

8 comments:

Virginia said...

Good for David. Anyone that actually wants to preserve parts of our cities should be applauded. Ken Mack ran photos of Tin Pan Alley in NYC that they are thinking about kicking to the curb. So sad!

D said...

I'm glad there are people who care about preserving the past, and have the money to do it!

Hope said...

I wish him all the best. I hope he is successful with his campaign.

Leedra said...

Thank you for showing us too. We all need to be enlightened on this subject.

marley said...

I now know the other reason why you went on this tour! Not only to learn the history but do I see wine in some of the hands?! You've been rumbled! Lol :)

Anonymous said...

Reminds me of the amphitheater ruins and where the gladiators played out their deadly games in Rome and the graffiti on the walls that actually became our Roman alphabet letters.

Knoxville Girl said...

Thanks, everyone. We're fortunate to have many passionate preservationists in town.
Abe - thanks for sharing that history of Roman graffiti; I learned something new. Alas, I suspect our underground gladiators were busy inhaling the aerosol from their spray paint.
Marley - oh, you caught me, I am sooooo busted! But I did make the ultimate sacrifice for CDP and put my wine glass down to take the snap.
V - I like your new avatar.

Jane Hards Photography said...

Who mentioned wine. My deranged laptop is allwing me do what I want tonight. This looks like a great place to have a lock in with the wine. The Romans were the original Graffiti artists. Also they used to chop the nose off their rival statues as an insult. Underground Knoxville, sounds like a cult movie.