eWire
June 17, 2004
Arts district carves a niche in Memphis' revitalized downtown
More than 40 shops and galleries are part of the colorful mosiac that energizes the South Main area
Contact:
Sally Walker Davies
901-438-5484
swalkerdavies@aol.com
The short, compact man with paint-splattered paints and a knit cap approaches from the back of the Art Village Gallery, the warm smile in his dark face registering at least a thousand watts of warmth and good humor on a cold, gray day in Memphis’ South Main Arts District.
Just a few blocks west of the Mississippi River, conversation with Ephraim Urevbu flows as swiftly as the current on the great waterway. His energy is both palpable and contagious as he talks about his role in the rebirth of one of this city’s oldest neighborhoods.
“From Beale Street down here everything was boarded up,” says Urevbu, gesturing toward Beale, about six blocks north from his gallery. “About 1993, 1994, I found this incredible building…you could see the sky from where we’re sitting.”
Despite gaps in the roof, despite no electricity or running water, and despite a deserted neighborhood that at the time could best be described as gloomy, Urevbu (pronounced with a silent ‘b’) was inspired by a vision of what could be. He moved his studio and gallery from Beale into the neglected space, and with a broad smile recounts the reaction of the building’s owners. “They thought I was nuts!”
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Until recently, energy was not a word one would normally associate with downtown Memphis. The languid pace at which this city has moved in the past was simpatico with the stereotype of a genteel Southern city - until now. Energy crackles throughout the city center. The FedEx Forum, the new home for the NBA Grizzlies, is almost complete. Restaurants and clubs overflow with patrons on the weekends – and not just on Beale Street. New lofts, apartments and spacious homes along the riverfront are bringing residents back downtown for the first time in decades. And the South Main Arts District is at the center of the resurgence.
There’s no one defining moment or event that can be pointed to as the catalyst for the revival of this area. Rather, a progression of events and the attention of dreamers like Urevbu have recharged this neighborhood.
Once the transportation center of Memphis, South Main bustled with activity through the fifties, but as travel by train declined, so did the area. A few businesses held on, including the city’s oldest restaurant, the Arcade, and a hotel that rented rooms by the hour, the Loraine. The assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. on the Loraine’s balcony seemed to be the death knell for the area, but it was just one more blow to an area already blighted by the movement of residents and businesses out of downtown and the closing of one of the city’s train stations.
“Everything downtown was abandoned, there was no control on development out into the suburbs, and there was a flight of business once people’s homes were out there,” says June West, Executive Director of Memphis Heritage.
Slowly at first, the atmosphere changed. Homes started going up on the riverfront. The retro AutoZone Park, home to the Triple-A Redbirds, opened, drawing more locals downtown. Shops and restaurants followed. Down in South Main, the National Civil Rights Museum was built, freezing the Loraine as it was the day King was shot and drawing thousands of visitors a year. Then momentum picked up. Galleries and studios opened in renovated spaces, as did boutiques, gift stores and restaurants. It was as if a light had been turned on, increasing in brightness every day. Now, more than 40 shops and galleries comprise the South Main Arts District.
“I think the beauty of this area is that it was…abandoned, if you will,” says West, who notes the irony in the fact that the area is a coup for preservationists in a city not known for putting its arms around the past. The Memphis Heritage offices, housed for seven years on the north end of Main, moved south recently, West says, “because of the energy… we felt we wanted to be at the heart of it.”
Fashion designer and native Memphian Katrina Shelton, fed up of corporate America, came home to Memphis and was drawn to the district immediately, thanks to Urevbu.
“He said, come, come, come, you have to see, come be a part of what’s happening,” Shelton recalls. She found a fantastic space smack in the middle of South Main Street that, “…just so spoke to me and this is it, come and tear it all out, come and bring it to life.”
And she has, with a store called Tonic. Evening gowns trimmed with beads hang in the tall, gleaming windows, racks of colorful ensembles bring new life to the old space. “It’s been absolutely phenomenal, “ Shelton says. “It’s become so bigger than just designing, and creating a space and a foundation for it.”
“The feel of the place was right,” says Michael Johnson, whose Blue Monkey restaurant and bar has opened to success beyond his expectations. A solid lunch business has surprised Johnson, who had hoped to become the nighttime neighborhood hangout for the community – and has. The appeal of the Blue Monkey is its artful blend of the past and the present. Flat screen plasma TVs hang from exposed brick walls under the original tin roof ceiling of the building, traditional plate lunches share menu space with new generation pizzas made on tortillas. “It’s amazing - there was no neighborhood down here five years ago,” says Johnson, “and, if half of what’s expected to happen down here in the next 12 months happens, we’ll be happy.”
The last Friday evening of each month, South Main shop and gallery owners stay open late for the Last Friday Trolley Tour. Trolleys roll through the district, dropping riders at galleries and shops where they can grab a glass of wine and mingle with artists and gallery owners, or browse through gifts and clothing. The shops are as diverse as the crowd, with African-American artists featured at Joysmith, fresh cut flowers and unique gifts at Gestures, folk art at D’Edge Art & Unique Treasures, and the collection of the late Vogue photographer Jack Robinson at the Robinson Gallery / Archives.
“I didn’t know a Rothko from a Kandinsky,” says Brenda Durden of her decision to open a European-style gallery in South Main. She found someone who did in Aaron Frye. A newcomer with a graduate degree in art, Frye showed up in South Main and liked what he saw. “ It’s a vibrant, growing area,” says Frye. “I think it has a lot of potential. Unlike New York or Chicago, here there’s a love of getting it (the arts community) established.”
“I’d rather paint than work,” laughs artist David George Hinske as he greets patrons at Durden Gallery on a recent Friday night. When he’s not working at FedEx, Hinske works mostly in acrylics that can fool you into thinking they’re oils. He views his art as a great second career, not a hobby, with studios in both Memphis and Taos, New Mexico. “It’s something I can do until I fall over.”
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Back at the corner of Huling and South Main, Ephraim Urevbu perches on a leopard-print stool in his gallery. He speaks in a soft Nigerian accent and talks of how his whole world now revolves around this corner building. He lives upstairs over the gallery, does his own framing and that of others in the basement frame shop, and entertains in Zanzibar, his restaurant next door that is going through a ‘re-evaluation’. Once a hopping bistro, but a financial drain on the gallery, it is now only open Saturday nights for salsa lessons and dancing. Soon, Urevbu hopes, it will again be restaurant. But this time around, the artist will leave the food business to the foodies, and focus on his gallery and spreading the word about South Main.
“My vision, really, is to create an eclectic art district where you can come and have coffee, listen to poetry and book reviews, see art exhibitions, jazz,” says Urevbu excitedly. From the vibrant colors of his paintings, the rapid movement of his gestures, and the animated expressions on his face, palpable energy flows from this man – as it does all across South Main.
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If you go: South Main Arts District
The South Main Arts District is located six blocks south of Beale Street on South Main Street. Most of the shops, galleries and restaurants are on South Main, between Huling and G.E. Patterson; many others front Huling, G.E. Patterson and Front Streets. Metered street parking and some paid parking lots are available. Trolleys run through the district at regular intervals and can be boarded at many stops along Main Street including Peabody Place, the Cook Convention Center, and the Marriott Hotel. The trolley is 30¢ per ride. The last Friday night of each month, South Main shops and galleries remain open until 10 p.m., and the trolley is free from 6 – 10 p.m. Trolley maps and neighborhood information can be found at www/downtownmemphis.com or by calling 901-575-0540.
South Main Arts District on the Web:
www.soutmainmemphis.org
www.downtownmemphis.com
www.artvillagegallery.com
www.durdengallery.com
www.memphisheritage.org