Meet Memphian #366, Overton-Broad Connector, Urban Art Trail

366/365
Doug Campbell has a beard, panniers and teaches economics at the University of Memphis. He was photographed at the Overton-Broad Connector Design Workshop where he was taking pictures of me for his blog, Biking In Memphis.

That looks familiar, right? I'm totally biting I Love Memphis. She has several times linked to fixmemphis but I can't recall that I've ever linked to her, so... Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

And speaking of Doug, he has a good review of the Design Workshop. I will add to his review that the type of lane that links the SF Greenline to Broad is a separated bike path running the west side of Tillman. It will be 2-lane traffic like the SF Greenline, crossing Sam Cooper and making a sharp left onto Broad (the only difficult part of my ride to the workshop) where it will eventually split to coincide with the "bike lanes" in place on Broad. I think that type of design is integral to give pedestrians and cyclists the sense of safety they have on the SF Greenline. The designs were drawn up with public input by Looney, Ricks, Kiss and funded by Livable Memphis (which needs to update its website).

Remember the description of the workshop: "a premier example of a safe and innovative bicycle/pedestrian facility and urban art trail that serves as a ..."

Urban art trail? That's one of the parts in which I was really interested. Alas, there was nothing about art at the workshop and John Weeden from the Urban Art Commission was not there so I couldn't ask him any questions.

But! I jumped onto the V&E Greenline as part of my Urban CX route and noticed some new art laying to the side. There are a few more pictures on my flickr; though you will have to get out there to see them in more detail.


Sometime in the future you might see a "disco ball" hanging off the side of the Sears Crosstown. Combine that with Guillame Alby's mural on Broad Avenue and the Urban Art Trail is starting to shape up.

Diamond In The Rough

The Sears Crosstown building has been the backdrop for many an aspiring photographer's black and white urban decay meditations and surely every Memphian has thought, "That would make a cool skatepark, shopping center, gallery/museum/cultural learning center, school, beach club, library, gym, whatever..." You can make those suggestions to the appropriate channel here. Personally I imagine it as the setting for Bruce Sterling's "Bicycle Repairman"; a post apocalyptic apartment building requiring some climbing training in order to be a resident (you already knew I was a sci-fi nerd).

But who's gonna back these ideas? The job of attracting the potential investors has been left to three artistic projects, decided upon by the public at a $25/ticket dinner curated by MemFEAST. One of those projects, titled "Diamond In The Rough" pairs locals Eli Gold and Colin Kidder in a collaborative venture to hang a "disco" ball made from 100 bicycle wheels from the side of the building.

If you're scratching your head and saying "WTF?" right now, please take a moment and click this link. Now you see what they're trying to accomplish.

When we think about connectivity in cycling terms it's about navigation. (I love that there are bike lanes on Southern but I still ride on "unprotected" streets to get to them.) Kidder and Gold have brought connectivity into the visual realm and have wittingly created a destination. With their efforts to sync the proposed Greenline developments with their vision they will be attracting any number of ideas and investors to the Crosstown doorstep. The amount of people riding the Greenline is only increasing and there are people out there who will ride the length to say that they did it and who will stumble upon Kidder and Gold's sculpture; then there are people like me who will ride to Sears Crosstown just to see it. I just really hope their creation is kinetic like that which atops Live From Memphis headquarters.

Get more information at the Overton-Broad Connector Design Workshop this Tuesday at 5:30PM:

From Livable Memphis: Overton-Broad Connector

The Overton-Broad Connector will be a premier example of a safe and innovative bicycle/pedestrian facility and urban art trail that serves as a catalyst for urban revitalization and business development. Upon completion, it will provide the connectivity for cyclists of all types to enjoy traveling from Shelby Farms to the Mississippi River and beyond.

Looney Ricks Kiss (Architects and Urban Planners), Alta Greenways (Bicycle and Pedestrian Planners), Fuss O' Neill (Transportation & Landscape Planners) and Powers Hill (Civil Engineering) will be conducting a design workshop for the Overton-Broad Connector area. Come share your input on the future of the area.

Event Date
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
5:30pm-7:00pm

Event Location
West Memorials, 2481 Broad Avenue

Metalworks Bicycle Rack

You remember Gadsby Creson and her maquettes, don'tcha? Well, this is not a replica, this rack is life-size. Fittingly affixed in front of Metalworks, this is one of the most abstract racks Memphis has seen. Not mimicing anything, that is, excepting that Broad Avenue mayhaps surpass South Main as the de facto art district in Memphis. That's a long way off, though. Galleries in both districts need to take a cue from Odessa and frequent the amount of exhibitions. But I digress, let's talk more about the rack.

With the way this rack is positioned any bike will pretty much be blocking the sidewalk. Which, in my opinion, is better than having a table set up behind it:

"Hello, I will make your pretty bicycle rack inoperable while I distribute information on how to make your city more bicycle friendly." I don't know if that was the case, but it seems likely. Much like the absence of recycling bins at BPAC meetings. (Noticed that, too, did ya?)

The more logical thing to do would be to put the rack nearer to one of the district termini, freeing up the sidewalk for browsing the galleries. Also, the bike lane is not sidewalk overflow, everyone.

Here's how it racks up:

Form - Artistic
Function - Half-Pass: It will accommodate 9 bicycles but they block the sidewalk
Environment - Artistic in an art district
Points of Interest - Metalworks, Urban Art Commission, The Cove, Odessa

Teeny Tiny Bike Racks

After seeing this article in the Flyer Emily and I made an appointment with the Urban Art Commission to view Gadsby Creson's 40 Bike Rack Maquettes. For those of us who slept through Art School Vocabulary 101 a maquette (even my spellcheck doesn't recognize the word!) is "a small model or study in three dimensions for either a sculptural or an architectural project." (dictionary.com)

Now that you've learned something today, let's look at a couple of the racks. Gadsby, who rides a bike only occasionally admits that she approached these racks from an artistic perspective. In some cases the art outweighs the functionality; there is no way to actually secure your bike to a rack like this:

The small portion of Memphians (even Americans) who use our bikes for more than recreation need to know our bike is secure. Bike racks can do this and be artistic at the same time. The best bike rack in Memphis is at the Brooks Museum because it incorporates the environment and is very secure. Gadsby does this in her work as well:

An anchor in front of The Cove: kinda kitschy but it works. It worked for David Byrne on Wall Street and New York's fashion district. But you're still limited with the number of bicycles you can attach without going full on bike-pile. Granted, getting people out on bikes is good but two people? Why not ten or twenty? We've seen the amount of people riding the Greenline. They're out there. But in addition to giving them a place to ride we also need to give them a place to park. Gadsby nails it with this one:

Depending on the space between the bars you could potentially fit twelve bikes on that rack. It doesn't imitate its environment but its got form, color, and functionality going for it. It looks pretty rad but maybe that's just my affinity for orange.

To view the rest of the maquettes make an appointment via urbanartcommission.org. The exhibit runs through January 28th. But don't wait until then: on November 19th and 20th as part of the "New Face for an Old Broad" event the UAC will be projecting the maquettes in their gallery space.