Meghan Stancil:
Christmas night, I found myself driving home through the ridge cut. This is by far one of my favorite Chattanooga drives to take at night, looping down and around the city. Signs like the Choo Choo, Erlanger and Blue Cross shine bright in our Scenic sky and always give me a sense of belonging as I curve around our valley. Gliding through downtown and over the river on Highway 27, the waterfront gleams. It's a welcome sight—even if flooded. I hop off my exit and drive past our local shops and turn on to Frazier. I am almost home.
The winding roads of North Chattanooga—or more accurately, the nonsensical chains of “roads” which were clearly created by chasing goats with bulldozers—offer an ideal living situation. Cars cannot easily fly through most of the area, creating the feel of a small, peaceful neighborhood. Combine this with being walking distance to a wonderful collection of shops, parks and restaurants, and biking distance to all the city has to offer, and you’ve got North Chattanooga.
We live in an amazing place, and I believe the renaissance we have experienced is only going to continue. There is still so much potential here and I look forward to curating discussions about where we live. What we love about it. How we ended up living here. What we want to see changed. What we drive past every day and wonder about. For instance, "What should be done with the old Greenlife?"
Participating in this conversation will be my fellow neighbor, Virginia Webb. We will be sharing posting duties in the hopes of providing Chattarati's North Chattanooga readers with more content, more often. So, in the spirit of a shared blog, I turn it over to you now, Virginia.
Virginia Webb:
There is nothing force fed about North Chattanooga. There is nothing bribed or invented here. North Chattanooga is an area that has evolved (or not) by way of its proximity to all things river. I live here on purpose and wouldn't live anywhere else in the city. I will die in North Chattanooga, and I will be entertained to my last gasping breath by the diversity and the surprise of being here.
Some attractions, like the Walnut Street Bridge, are obvious, and others, like the tennis shoes thrown over and dangling from power lines on Lower Tremont Street, are just plain curious. North Chattanooga's brilliant renovations are reassuring. The gang graffiti, on the other hand, is vaguely disturbing—especially when it is crudely done without imagination. Who is Captain Jack? And is he missing two pairs of tennis shoes?
Stancil:
Most importantly, I want to be able to get to know the people of this neighborhood I love so much. I want to know what’s on your minds.
We hope you'll join in the conversations here.
Aaron Gustafson on Jan. 4, 2010
I'd love to see the old Greenlife become a bookstore or perhaps a small art house cinema.
jf37405 on Jan. 4, 2010
It's great to see a blog for North Chattanooga here on Chattarati. I'm surprised that nothing has happened with the old Greenlife building. Seems like it would be prime real estate. Has it even been put up for sale?
e williams on Jan. 5, 2010
Thanks for being our "bloggers"! I look forward to reading more.
A couple of points...some streets have a very bad speeding problem (we need to work as a community on more speed bumps for these streets as it gets very dangerous - Colville, Forest and Mississippi all get a lot of speeders).
Also, the tennis shoes on the power lines are gang related. We have a neighborhood association (northshore area of North Chatt) and we had a police representative come and talk to us about this. The group meets at the Colville Street rec center - hope you might consider getting involved/attending.
I hope that in the spirit of honest and productive dialogue these points (and others) will be considered and discussed as part of using this blog as a force for positive growth in our wonderful neighborhood!
Thank you again for committed the time to leading the conversation for us - it is greatly appreciated and it is exciting that we have a "voice"!
David Morton on Jan. 5, 2010
When are the North Shore Neighborhood meetings? We'd like to add them to Chattarati's Civic Events calendar.
Also, on the North Chattanooga blog — http://chattarati.com/neighborhoods/north-chattanooga/ — anyone can access SeeClickFix, a service that tracks municipal problems (like speed bumps) that need to be addressed in a city or neighborhood. So far, the SeeClickFix community has had some success getting attention from the city on the issues identified. Check it out and let us know what you think.