Culture
Big Ears 2025: Many Rivers to Cross, Part Two
“Many Rivers to Cross” is, of course, the title of the great Jimmy Cliff song from the movie “The Harder They Come,” which was shown at the festival. It’s also descriptive of the city during the...
Big Ears Through the Kaleidoscope, Part Two
And we’re back! Read my part one here and Alan’s part one here. His part two will be along this afternoon. Saturday, March 28: Big Little Ears Thomas, our 5-year-old, is in a bad mood. He...
Big Ears 2025, Many Rivers to Cross, Part One
In the post-Big Ears afterglow, it’s time to reflect. Referencing many of our experiences as “a journey” rings almost hollow from overuse. Life, career, marriage, prolonged illness, and sometimes literal travel all give way to the...
Big Ears Through the Kaleidoscope, Part One
We got this little toy kaleidoscope from the Knoxville Museum of Arts’s Museum Shop a few months ago. As our 5-year-old Thomas played around with it, the wonderful shopkeeper Vicki Wyric told us about an artist...
Business
Holistic Connection and Basement Location of Spellbound Close on Gay Street
This is coming to you a few weeks after the fact, in a sense, but The Holistic Connection has remained open as they’ve sold inventory with plans to vacate the building at 716 S. Gay Street...
Low Meadow Farms Offers Backcountry Experience in Downtown’s Backyard
Happy First Day of Spring! The daffodils are blooming, the air is perfectly lukewarm, and we’re collectively emerging from our winter dens. You rub your eyes and there it is again, like clockwork – nature! –...
Empowering Voices: The Journey of Let Her Speak
March is Women’s History Month! I wanted to feature a woman and a Knoxville program that upholds all that women are, can do and will do for our community and the world! Let Her Speak is...
Small Comforts Kitchen Will Soon Open Its New Storefront
Jordan Smith began her journey of providing desirable gluten-free goods from her personal experience of being diagnosed with Celiac Disease 10 years ago. Having always loved baking, she saw a need in her own life and...
Development
Emporium (Mostly) Sold (Again)
Warning: Attempting to keep up with downtown transactions, plans, and players can induce severe mental whiplash. The Emporium Building on the 100 block of Gay Street, built in 1898, started life as a furniture store, spent...
The Sanitary Laundry Building Comes Back to Life
A life-force permeates old buildings. From the materials made by forgotten hands to the lives and labor that existed within its walls, the air swirls with stories. All the old buildings and, with them, their stories,...
Knoxville Children’s Theatre Purchases The Foundry; Moving to Downtown
As one curtain closes on The Foundry at World’s Fair Park, another rises. In September, we reported on the closing of The Foundry after 32 years. For its next act, the Foundry will become the home...
Gay Street Bridge Status Clarified; An Interview with Councilmember Smith
In a hastily called press conference on Wednesday, Mayor Kincannon gave the anticipated Gay Street Bridge update that no one wanted to hear: The Gay Street Bridge will never again be open to vehicular traffic. While...
Events
Downtown Knoxville Ten Day Planner (3/30 – 4/8/2025)
If you want your event included, please make a Facebook event, invite me via the “invite” button on the event page (Alan Sims – you’ll have to friend me), and it will be included. I need...
Downtown Knoxville Ten Day Planner (3/23 – 4/1/2025)
If you want your event included, please make a Facebook event, invite me via the “invite” button on the event page (Alan Sims – you’ll have to friend me), and it will be included. I need...
Saint Patrick’s Day Parade Brightens Downtown Streets
Knoxville’s Saint Patrick’s Day Parade took to the streets on Saturday and the city turned green in every direction. Several groups turned out decent floats while some of the members of the crowd made for the...
Downtown Knoxville Ten Day Planner (3/16 – 3/25/2025)
If you want your event included, please make a Facebook event, invite me via the “invite” button on the event page (Alan Sims – you’ll have to friend me), and it will be included. I need...
Life
Ghost Walking a Section of Walnut Street
(Today’s article is by guest writer Paul James of the Knoxville History Project.) Walk along Walnut Avenue between Summit Hill Drive and Union Avenue today and you’ll find that it’s a relatively unremarkable spot compared to Market...
Friday Tidbits: Gay Street Bridge Funding and More
Lots of news bits slip out and around the city every day. We deliver some of them in full-length stories, while others fit better in a list of sorts. Early this month several hit that fit...
Low Meadow Farms Offers Backcountry Experience in Downtown’s Backyard
Happy First Day of Spring! The daffodils are blooming, the air is perfectly lukewarm, and we’re collectively emerging from our winter dens. You rub your eyes and there it is again, like clockwork – nature! –...
A Conversation with Barbara Swineford, UTK’s Carribelle Carousel the Clown and Much More
If you were a child visiting UTK’s Carousel Children’s Theatre in the late 1960s and early 1970s, you may remember a clown balancing a dragonfly on your nose or leading you in a song. When I...