Walking In Memphis… & Little Rock
I’m planning a road trip to visit the family in Oklahoma. Instead of my usual route directly on I-44 I’m taking a quick detour through Memphis & Little Rock. The main goal is to experience Memphis’ Mainstreet Trolley and Little Rock’s River Rail.
While I am in those cities I also want to check out some modern in-fill projects, New Urbanist projects and other vibrant areas. The problem is, I don’t know where to find what I’m looking for. So, I’m open to suggestions you may have on places to visit in Memphis & Little Rock. I will have only a few hours in each city and will be spending a night in Little Rock.
So, if you can think of urban projects or places to visit in either city please use the comments below. If you’ve got links to websites with helpful information please include those as well.
– Steve
Memphis – Beale Street is interesting, and there’s always Graceland. There’s also a good diner at the south end of the original trolley lne, opposite their train station.
Little Rock – I know nothing – never been there.
Two New Urbanist developments border downtown Memphis– Harbor Town and South Bluffs.
Harbor Town is more of a TND greenfield development on the northern part of Mud Island. Just northwest of downtown, across a bridge just north of I-40, it feels like a gated community isolated from the rest of the city.
South Bluffs, on the other hand, is a mix of rehab and new infill, located just south of Downtown, within walking distance of Beale Street, the trolley and riverfront trail. South Bluffs is also better integrated into surrounding neighborhoods, but even it too has some gates.
One website on both developments is: http://www.henryturley.com
The only thing I remember about Little Rock is that I had to give my name and address everytime I went into a bar.
I think there may be ongoing tours in Little Rock – I was there for a conference a few weeks back and they had Little Rock Tours buses everywhere.
Definitely stop at the Clinton Library while you are there. It’s well done, and reminds us, regardless of political persuasion, how much promise we have lost in the last several years. I blame Clinton’s indiscretion as much as anything, but it’s depressing seeing the trajectory we abandoned to the Christo-Fascists, who, from the president to poor women in South Dakota, seem unhealthily obsessed with what’s going on in everyone else’s pants.
Thanks for making that damned song stick in my head. Oy!
Spending 12 years as a Memphian through college and my early career, I would suggest a few places. First I suggest the recently renewed (and commercialized) Beale Street and immediately surrounding area. Several new hotels, the Fedex Forum, Peabody Place, Gibson Guitar factory and Virgin Records have been new additions for approximately the last five years.
Next, I would suggest to ride the entire trolley line. A new line opened through the medical district to the edge of Midtown.
Midtown is an interesting place, older homes and rather hip around Cooper / Young streets and Madison’s Overton Square. However, it is a bit to walk to these neighborhoods from the end of the trolley line.
Finally, Harbor Town is a new (about ten years old) interesting neighborhood located on the peninsula of Mud Island. I briefly considered living there. The bridge to the island is just north of the vacant Pyramid. As I recall, there is a trolley stop about a block away from the bridge.
Enjoy the trip,
Brian Boeckmann
The Lorraine Motel (where Martin Luther King was shot), is also an interesting stop in Mempis . . .
In LR check out the Hillcrest section of town, it was a streetcar suburb. I think around Kavanaugh above Markham. nice well-kept bungalows. although as you go farther up towards the Heights, the McMansion impulse is growing.
also I don’t know if I’d walk around much, but Little Rock Central High is historic – for all the wrong reasons. (but in a really crappy area – seriously, there’s razorwire around the football stadium)
the pawpaw? quarter not far from Central has some beautifully restored homes.
Downtown has really changed in recent years. IIRC during Clinton as governor, there was some sort of state program that bought up a lot of storefronts and renovated them. they sat empty for years and he took a lot of heat for that, but in the end, once the people were ready to use them, there they were.
Outside of downtown, LR isn’t very ped-friendly I gotta say.