The Old City is a neighborhood in Knoxville, Tennessee, United States, located at the northeast corner of the city's downtown area. Originally part of a raucous and vice-ridden section of town known as "The Bowery," the Old City has since been revitalized through extensive redevelopment efforts carried out during the 1980s through the present.Melonee McKinney, "A Time of Transition an Avenue of Renaissance in Knoxville." Knoxville News Sentinel, 3 April 1994. Currently, the Old City is an offbeat urban neighborhood, home to several unique restaurants, bars, clubs, and shops.
In spite of its name, the Old City is not the oldest section of Knoxville. Most of the neighborhood was not part of the city until the 1850s, when the arrival of the railroad encouraged the city to annex the areas north of Vine Avenue.Jack Neely, Market Square: A History of the Most Democratic Place on Earth (Knoxville, Tenn.: Market Square District Association, 2009), pp. 7, 18, 100. The railroad brought an influx of Irish immigrants, who established the Old City's first saloons and shops. After the Civil War, Knoxville developed into one of the southeast's largest wholesaling centers. Wholesalers built large warehouses, such as the ones along Jackson Avenue, where rural East Tennessee merchants came to buy the goods with which they stocked their general stores.
By the early 1900s, Central Street was lined with saloons and brothels. Violent crime and prostitution continued to be a problem into the 1960s, causing many of the neighborhood's businesses to flee the area. Beginning in 1986, successful redevelopment efforts led by Architect Peter Calandruccio and Builder Benny Curl revitalized the neighborhood. Calandruccio's master-planning (see below) prompted other developers to begin work on other properties as the opportunity of broad-scaled development showed itself promising.
Location The Old City is concentrated around the intersection of Central Street and Jackson Avenue, adjacent to the Southern Terminal tracks and railyard (now part of the Norfolk Southern system). The neighborhood is roughly bounded by Magnolia Avenue on the north, Gay Street on the west, Summit Hill Drive on the south, and the interstate overpasses on the east. Interstate 40 passes just north of the Old City, and is accessible via the Downtown Loop from Summit Hill Drive.
History
19th century
During the first half of the 19th century, Knoxville's northward expansion was slow. By 1852, Vine Avenue marked the city's northern limits. The establishment of Market Square in 1854 and the arrival of the railroad in 1855 catalyzed development north of the city, however, and by the end of 1855 the city's limits had pushed northward to what is now Emory Place.East Tennessee Historical Society, Lucile Deaderick (ed.), Heart of the Valley: A History of Knoxville, Tennessee (Knoxville, Tenn.: East Tennessee Historical Society, 1976), pp. 70-80, 226-231.
The arrival of the railroad had a major impact on the city's cultural makeup, as hundreds of Irish immigrants arrived in town to help construct the railroad tracks and facilities. Many of these immigrants settled in what is now the Old City, so much so that at one point the area was known as "Irish Town.""Ask Doc Knox," Turn-of-the-Century Life in Knoxville's Bowery. Metro Pulse, 19 May 2010. Accessed at the Internet Archive, 2 October 2015. After the Civil War, Irish businessmen began building saloons and shops along Central (originally Crozier) Street that served the city's railroad traffic. Among these businesses was a saloon built by Patrick Sullivan (1840—1925), which initially operated out of a wooden structure before Sullivan erected the elaborate brick building that still stands at the corner of Central and Jackson.Patrick Sullivan Steakhouse and Saloon - History. Retrieved: 10 December 2010.
In 1869, Knoxville's two main rail lines merged to form the East Tennessee, Virginia and Georgia Railroad, which in subsequent years constructed or acquired over of track across the southeast, leading to a wholesaling and industrial boom in the city. By 1886, several factories had moved into the Old City. The Burr and Terry Sash Factory stood at what is now the intersection of Central and Jackson.Henry Wellge, Knoxville, Tenn.: County Seat of Knox County, 1886 (Milwaukee: Norris, Wellge and Company, 1886). Map. The four-story City Mills (later White Lily) plant and the Beach's Marble Works finishing mill stood along Depot, and the Elridge Carriage Factory operated near the modern corner of Central and Summit Hill.
Early 1900s
By the early 1900s, Central Street had developed into a raucous area known as "The Bowery," presumably after the New York neighborhood of similar repute. A 1900 article described the Bowery as being "congregated by nine-tenths of the criminal element" of Knoxville, and according to historian Jack Neely, "saloons, whorehouses, cocaine parlors, gambling dens, and poolrooms" lined Central from the tracks to the river.Jack Neely, Detour de Knoxville. Metro Pulse, 28 May 2008. Accessed at the Internet Archive, 2 October 2015. Florida Street, which ran adjacent to Central prior to expressway construction, developed into a red-light district known as "Friendly Town."
Bar fights and shootouts were not uncommon at the Bowery's saloons. The most well-known of the Bowery's gunfights occurred at Ike Jones' bar on Central on December 13, 1901, when outlaw Kid Curry (a member of Butch Cassidy's Wild Bunch) shot two Knoxville police officers.Jack Neely, Knoxville's Oldest Bar. Metro Pulse, 20 August 2008. Accessed at the Internet Archive, 2 October 2015.Matt Lakin, "Notorious Outlaw, Notable Invention Among Biggest Stories for Sentinel in New Century," Knoxville News Sentinel, 29 January 2012. Retrieved: 29 January 2012. Curry was eventually captured and jailed, but managed to escape. The shooting became a rallying cry for the city's prohibitionists, who shouted down Knoxville mayor Samuel Heiskell with chants of "Harvey Logan" (Curry's real name) during a rally on Market Square in 1907.
Peace Corps "progenitor" James Herman Robinson (1907–1972) grew up in a polluted and disease-ridden slum known as "The Bottoms," which lay adjacent to the Bowery on the banks of First Creek.James Herman Robinson, Road Without Turning: The Story of James H. Robinson (New York: Farrar, Straus and Company, 1950), p. 17-22. In his autobiography, Road Without Turning, Robinson describes the Bottoms as the "lowest" part of Knoxville, "geographically, morally, and economically."Robinson, Road Without Turning, p. 17. He later joined a gang which hung out at the corner of Central and Vine, where they witnessed "every lewd act and heard every vile phrase descriptive of it."Robinson, Road Without Turning, p. 70.
While the Bowery was one of the most crime-ridden sections of Knoxville, it was also one of the most diverse, and was one of the few parts of town where black-owned businesses functioned next to white-owned businesses. Black-owned businesses in the neighborhood included the Gem Theater, the Dogan-Gaither Motel, Gleaner Printing Company, and Easley's Grocery.Becky French Brewer and Douglas Stuart McDaniel, Park City (Arcadia Publishing, 2005), pp. 86-88. In the early 1900s, Greek immigrant Constantine Stergiokis opened one of Knoxville's first Greek restaurants along Central. After citywide prohibition shut down Knoxville's saloons, the Italian-American Armetta family opened an ice cream parlor in the Sullivan building.
Part of the Knoxville Riot of 1919, one of the city's worst racial episodes, took place in the Bowery on August 30, 1919. Early that morning, a white woman was murdered, and police arrested Maurice Mays, a prominent local mulatto, for the crime. That afternoon, a lynch mob broke into the jail, and failing to find Mays, freed several inmates and looted the liquor storage room. As the riot spread into the streets, the rioters made their way to the Bowery, where they attacked and exchanged gunfire with black residents along Vine Avenue. The National Guard finally restored order the following morning.Bruce Wheeler, Knoxville Riot of 1919. Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture, 2002. Retrieved: 12 December 2010.
Revitalization
As crime persisted in the Bowery, businesses began moving away. In the 1940s, JFG Coffee, which had opened its processing plant on West Jackson in 1921, threatened to move to a new location, complaining that the company's truck drivers were consistently mobbed by prostitutes. Walter McGinnis, who operated the Tri-City Barber College at the corner of Jackson and Central from 1952 until 1992, recalled that, "Saturday at noon, the sawmills would close, and the people who worked in the forest would come to South Central. By 5 o'clock that night they were all pretty drunk and fightin.'"
Several scenes in Cormac McCarthy's 1979 novel, Suttree, take place in the Old City. In one scene, the title character passes along Central, where "loud and shoddy commerce erupted out of the dim shops into the streets and packs of scarred dogs wandered," en route to sell his fish to a Central Street butcher. In another scene, a friend of Suttree's tells a story about a murderer showing off his victim's severed head at a bar on Central.Cormac McCarthy, Suttree (New York: Vintage Books, 1992), pp. 69, 203-204. The book also mentions the "Corner Grill" (later the Corner Lounge), which operated on North Central from the 1930s until 2008.