Main Street Chattanooga, revamped

Walk down the sidewalk of East Main Street in Chattanooga, and you’ll see dilapidated, falling apart, crumbling-right-before-your-eyes buildings next to freshly-renovated places open for business. You'll see graffitied walls next to iron sidewalk sculptures, brick streetscaping next to weeds in the cracks on the curb.

The shell of a brick building, no roof on the top, glass in the windows... or doors, for that matter.

Having recently spent millions building parks and paths along the Tennessee River that runs through downtown, the city has turned its attention to revitalizing a four-block stretch further inland. The idea is to move restaurants, businesses, galleries and art studios into the once gritty part of town, and to encourage people to live there.

Even as I strolled down the street during my visit to Chattanooga last week, change was happening: jackhammers pounded, construction workers in hard hats yelled conversations at one another, signs proclaimed “Coming Soon” and “Will Build to Suit.”

The mural painted on the side of Madia's Healing Arts studio

Private foundations have invested hundreds of thousands of dollars into the project, and it seems to be working. The Bluegrass Grill was packed with lunch goers eating Greek salads or corned beef and Swiss cheese sandwiches, Madia’s Healing Arts had a full schedule of yoga classes and spa treatments available and people were tapping away at their computers in the office of CreateHere, an organization that supports the economic and cultural development of the city.

I stopped into Niedlov’s Breadworks, an organic, artisan bakery in a refurbished building at 215 E. Main, where the motto is "We love to knead. We knead to love." The ambiance was simple and nice — wooden tables, walls of exposed brick and pumpkin-colored plaster, a barn-like wooden ceiling — and the baked goods were delish. I had a cinnamon roll made with Indonesian course-ground cinnamon. I could taste the difference. OK, not really, but it was light, fluffy and melt-in-your-mouth.

My breakfast

With all the changes taking place on Main Street, I can guarantee a year from now, it will be a completely different — and a really cool — place to be.

Here are a few other pictures of Chattanooga. Sorry, I can't resist:

The Walnut Street walking bridge across the Tennessee River, which connects the shops and parks on the North Shore with the arts district downtown

The Tennessee Aquarium as seen from the opposite side of the river

The really-old, sort-of-old and new wings of the Hunter American  Art Museum, taken from the Walnut Street Bridge

The Hunter Museum and the Holmberg glass pedestrian bridge. (I hear they put that metal strip down the middle of the bridge so people on the road below can't look up women's skirts.)

A glass and iron sculpture around a balcony in the Bluff View Arts District

Broad Street, from the Tennessee Aquarium

A bench and trash can in front of a grassy hill in Renaissance Park

My sister Laura on the stadium-seating steps at Ross' Landing, in front of the aquarium. (This is right before she broke out in a dance routine to the Britney Spears' "Womanizer.")

I say "Chatta," you say "nooga"

Whenever my friend Amy introduced me to people we encountered in Chattanooga, she would say, “This is my friend Christina. She’s just got back from South America. She was there for nine months, the length of a pregnancy.”The person would look at me. “Just a coincidence,” I would say. Before I headed south a gestation period ago, I lived in Chattanooga for two years. I knew nothing about the city when I moved there to take a job at the newspaper, but I quickly grew to love it for its downtown parks, hilly old neighborhoods and position on the slow-moving Tennessee River at the base of Lookout and Signal mountains.

Coolidge Park and its carousel, on the river

I went back to visit my friends there last weekend and found the city a lot like I left it and a little different.

Things that did not change while I was gone:

• The same stained white curtains are hanging in the bottom half of the nine-foot, wavy-glassed windows of my dear old apartment at the corner of Mississippi Avenue and Summer Street.
• My former landlord, a bleached blond in her late 30s, is still crazy. The last time I saw her before my move, she proudly shouted to me — and everyone sitting on the grass behind me at an outdoor concert — “I got new boobs! Check ’em out!” When I ran into her this time, she introduced the man on her arm, then performed a song and dance. “I got a boyfriend, I got a boyfriend!” she yelled, shaking her hips back and forth. The man on her arm looked mortified.

• The cathead biscuits, omelettes and grits at the ever-popular North Chattanooga establishment Aretha Frankensteins are tasty as ever. Stuffed crows, movie villain heads and rock ‘n roll posters decorate the walls of this turquoise house-cum-restaurant perched on the steep side of Tremont Street. The porch, patio and inside tables are still packed on weekend mornings.

• The homeless man with a bushy white beard still sits on the bench at the end of the Walnut Street walking bridge that spans the Tennessee River (he has a new pair of overalls, though).
• Friday evening Nightfall concerts at Miller Plaza downtown still draw a crowd that’s not afraid to dance. Texas-based soul singer Ruthie Foster performed while I was there and completely rocked the place.
• The Pickle Barrel, a rickety downtown pub with rooftop seating, will still give you Tater Tots in place of French Fries, and it will still make your night.
• My running route along a section of the 10-mile downtown-to-dam riverwalk still makes me happy. As do the hiking trails on Lookout and Signal mountains, which overlook the river valley as they weave through hardwood forests and granite formations.
• I still wish I could rollerskate through the Times Free Press newsroom, which has expansive hardwood floors that just BEG to be skated.

Things that DID change since I left:

• Holy riverfront condos! Honestly, are there THAT many people clamoring to live in condos to justify building 50 MILLION of them along the river's edge?
• The Yellow Deli, run by the long-haired members of the Twelve Tribes Christian sect, is back in town. The religious community opened the original Yellow Deli in 1973, but left town after stirring up controversy and arousing suspicion they were a cult. They returned to the Scenic City this spring for Try #2. Tribe members, dressed in modest handmade clothing (which means long, flowing skirts for women), serve dishes like fresh chef salads, reuben sandwiches, papaya smoothies and carrot cake. Every aspect of the building — from the doorways to the walls to the banisters — has been meticulously hand-carved or painted. The quality of the food and décor is almost enough to make you forget the misgivings you have about the group that runs it.
• Greenlife Grocery closed its store down the street from my former apartment and opened a big new megastore closer to the river. With the addition of second-story restaurant seating, there’s really no reason to ever leave. Pick up breakfast burritos from the hot bar, the best blueberry muffins in the world (I’m not kidding), made-on-the-spot sushi, gourmet salads, smoothies, fruit, whatever, and hang around.
• And, perhaps the biggest change of all: VW is coming! VW is coming! The German automaker Volkswagen announced last month they’ll be building a $1 billion production facility in the Scenic City in 2011. This means an additional 2,000 jobs in the area. Everyone is elated about the economic boost the automaker will bring to Chattanooga. “Willkommen” signs hang from the side of all the street lamps downtown. I can only hope the city plans its growth and expansion wisely and with taste and that it doesn’t ruin its charm by erecting cheap, cookie-cutter neighborhoods, strip malls... and more condos.

Arethas photos by Dorie Turner

When the crows fly

Ok, so they're starlings. But the convention was tonight, in the parking lot outside the Chattanooga Times Free Press.

Finish your beer, there are sober kids in India

You don't have to know anything about roving gypsies or Queen's head-banging rock opera to hang out at JJ’s Bohemia — though it could help you score big at the bar’s trivia night. The Chattanooga watering hole opened about a year ago on Martin Luther King Blvd. and has quickly become a central hangout for the city’s hipsters.The barroom has exposed brick walls, dim lighting and utilitarian décor: two red couches at the front, two round tables at the back and a row of cushion-covered kegs along the bar. On Thursday night, one-man-band Scotty Karate took the stage around 11 p.m., wearing a Willie Nelson T-shirt and buffalo wig with antlers. His left foot clapped a cymbal, his right foot pounded a drum, his fingers wailed into an electric guitar and he warbled about super cuties and digging holes. He was likely chewing gum too.

JJ’s regular patrons shout greetings to people who enter, and, for the most part, abide by a sign on the counter that advises, "Finish your beer, there are sober kids in India." If you’re thinking of stopping by the neighborhood hot spot, here’s a tentative schedule of events: Monday: Pub quiz with Eddie Tuesday: $2 Guinness Wednesday: Open mic night Sunday: Movie Night