After reading the writings of David Cook and Lynn Curtis, I was inspired to write a little about my own feelings about the "Coolidge" hotel.
I've been fighting this development for months. I have spent, as have many other people including Mary Hutson, John Coolidge Jr. and plenty of others, cumulatively and literally THOUSANDS of hours fighting this hotel development. People sometimes look at me like I'm a little crazy for caring so much about something which might seem like it doesn't matter that much, and I try to think of a way to explain how deep and convoluted my feelings are about this issue and words fail to describe them.
I've lived in a lot of cities. I was born in Rome, Ga. and lived there until I was 13. I then moved to Atlanta where I lived for another 15 years. After that I moved to Hawaii, and spent a couple of years adventuring. Looking back, I realize that no place in my life has ever had such a deep and meaningful impact on my life as has Chattanooga.
I loved Rome. It was a fantastic place to be born. But as I grew older, it became a place painted with the sadness of dissolution of family and loss. Eventually I looked around and realized that my hometown had become a place where it seemed like time was standing still. They say that glass is in fact a liquid that is slowly flowing downward, and that if you could see it in a thousand years, it would be nothing but drops, like water. Rome became a place where I felt like I was waiting on the glass to flow down. I grew, but Rome didn't.
Atlanta was always waiting for something good to happen, but it never seemed to. It was always in a state of flux. It was sharp, angular and broken. Torn up streets, lines of cars for miles and pollution. I lived in Gwinnett county all through the 80's and watched as this little speck became the fastest growing county in the country. I watched as it tore itself to pieces before my eyes and tried it's best to reassemble itself in some new fashion. When I go back now to visit my father I drive past strip mall, after strip mall after strip mall. It's glass and asphalt, no matter where I turn. There is no consideration for "view" in Atlanta because there is nothing to see. Why else would Stone Mountain have such appeal for the locals? Extricate yourself from the scrub pine and the shopping malls and come see the worlds biggest rock. All of the old growth timber is long gone and someone thought it made sense to replace 500 year old oaks with scrub pine. It's still green right?
I stayed in Gwinnett until I was hit on my motorcycle by a man driving a 1982, black Chevrolet Silverado. He pulled out in my lane and somehow I found myself not able to swerve, duck or veer. I was going to hit him and there was nothing I could do. I hit my back brake too hard, slid sideways under the front of his truck, slamming my head into his chrome bumper, and putting an inch deep dent in it with my helmet. I lay on my back on the pavement, trying to figure out if I was still alive. The sun was shining and people gathered around me looking down. This circle of faces up above me haloed by sunlight. I got on my bike and left before the police showed up. There was something about that place that wasn't right. Maybe it was me.
Next I escaped to Hawaii. A year on Oahu and a year on the Big Island. I had a great time. I dived, I hiked, I saw things that were vivid and unforgettable. I jumped off of waterfalls that roared. Higher than I thought I would ever care to climb. But eventually the unchanging seasons and the pounding loneliness of the winter surf brought me back home. I came back to this geographic region where I can reach out and touch my family, where the speech patterns ring familiar and where the leaves turn brown and fall off of the trees. Then I came to Chattanooga.
Chattanooga was a revelation to me. It was growth. It was so many things I had wanted in a city. If I could have the lush rainforest, the waterfalls and the sunsets of Hawaii, Chattanooga would be the perfect Eden. As it is, it's only a slice of Eden, but better than I've ever had.
What a fantastic thing it was to build the park down on that muddy river. What a great expanse it is. It's green lawn, punctuated by revelers throwing Frisbees, walking their children and just "living." That's what Chattanooga is to me. It's a place to "Live." With a capital "L." I feel more alive here. I'm sure that there are other cities that feel this way, but this is my first. And it's special to me. I'm like Goldilocks and my search for the perfect bed has led me to Chattanooga, which is for me, "just right."
Anyone who has ever attempted to "create" something, something artistic, has learned the first and greatest lesson of art. You must know when to STOP creating. You must know when beauty cannot be increased, only destroyed. This is the apex of creation. We know what is at the center of the color wheel? When you mix all of the colors together, you get gray.
This is why the regional planning agency created the guidelines. This is why there is a committee that's supposed to approve new projects and make sure that they meet the guidelines. And what a woeful and shortsighted job they have done. How flaccid, how self-serving, how gratuitous was this approval. I'm beyond being "angry" at what they have done. I am sad. Deeply, deeply saddened by their betrayal of the people of Chattanooga and their blatant flaunting of the law, their unspoken oath to serve and to follow the rules and their willingness to sacrifice everything so that they can make a buck.
The Bible says that it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get into heaven. Most people misinterpret this verse. The eye of a needle doesn't refer to an actual needle you would sew with. The "eye of the needle" was a narrow gate in Israel. If a man tried to walk through it leading a camel, heavily laden with goods, he would be unable to pass. These people are yanking the camel for all that they are worth, and would rather the camel tear down the walls than sacrifice one farthing from their hoard. They break laws in plain sight and city officials and city attorneys look on blank faced, and it makes me wonder if they have holes where their hearts are supposed to be.
All of the city officials, including the mayor and our city council person have told us over and over again "It's not my job." "There's nothing I can do." "We don't tread on each other's territory." Then, the heat started to rise, and there was the mayor with one hand outstretched for the brass ring of the senate. Suddenly there IS something he can do and he begins to paddle his feet just enough to make waves and make it look like he's doing something. Sally Robinson, whose district it is ducks out of the meeting early and doesn't say a word. What a great show these people have put on.
I'm surprised at Mayor Corker. I'm surprised that he could work so hard and do so much. That he could generate such accomplishment, but then he would let the final statement of his legacy in Chattanooga be that he let someone build a giant glass outhouse 36 feet from our national landmark, the Walnut Street Bridge.
Unless I'm mistaken, the people who ignored the law and voted to approve this hotel were all appointed by the mayor. They didn't have a quorum when they voted. If the mayor didn't allow that to happen, who did? Isn't there supposed to be a RESIDENT on that board? "We couldn't find anyone" was their excuse. I believe you. Because I have "stupid" painted on my forehead, as do all of the other ten thousand people who signed the petition.
Everyone I know who has read the guidelines believes that the hotel shouldn't have been approved. David Kling, one of the committees own members did everything but BEG them not to vote on it and they ignored him. He said out loud, before they voted that he thought there were multiple points on which it didn't meet the standards. Here are a few of the ways it doesn't me the guidelines...
1) Destroys views of the river from our landmark, the Walnut Street Bridge.
2) Sets a new precedent for height on that block. This is a law, not a guideline which will be broken.
3) Has zero lot lines.
4) Will greatly denigrate the Walking Bridge Experience, exposing our walkers to the sound of giant fans on its roof, the smell of rotting garbage and the sight of naked tourists through windows 36 feet away.
5) Will choke traffic for the entire period of construction. There is only one ingress into the park. Add bulldozers, a crane, deliveries and torn up roads.
Here are some ways in which this plan shouldn't have been approved on common sense grounds...
1) Chattanooga is full of hotels which are perpetually half empty. Some a lot nicer than the barn Stroud wants to build next to the bridge.
2) They have done no study to seek to understand the long term effects on traffic. Not just cars, but buses also.
3) They have done no "sight line" study, which is usually a given with most large buildings.
4) They have done no geologic survey to see how excavating out 20 feet down, 36 feet from a hundred year old bridge might affect that landmark and it's underpinnings.
Watching these people work has been like watching an orgy. Like watching something malign. It's almost like having a bad odor in your house and knowing that something has died in your wall, but knowing that you will never be able to find it. I've continually had this feeling in the pit of my stomach that this whole thing is not about "growth" but about "SHOW ME THE MONEY." Profit. Approve it now and let's work out a deal in the back room for the future. I can see the handshakes over cigar smoke in some back room. I'll rent you my land for valet parking, say in two years after this has died down, and you can have my vote now. You can build a restaurant. This architect works for some egomaniacal other architect who desperately wants to put one more notch on his belt.
For God's sake, take an inch off that All Thing's Groovy sign!! Are you Crazy? Can't you see that sign is too big?
Hotel? Why, that's a great idea! SOLD!!!! I can visualize the barracuda smiles and the golden shovel. What a disgrace.
I fought the North Chattanooga overlay tooth and nail. That was another fiasco. It served to prove to me that some people in this town stop at nothing to see their personal agenda come to life. A few weeks ago, one prominent businessman and city bureaucrat approached John Coolidge Jr. on the walking bridge and told him that this was "his town." And that "nothing happened without his approval."
This was the same person who told us that the North Chattanooga Overlay was going to happen and that there was "nothing we could do about it." He was wrong.
His money didn't rebuild that bridge. His money didn't build the park. It was taxpayer money. He's used his position to buy up real estate ahead of the bow wave of the behemoth and sucked all the profits out before the poor folks could make anything.
There are people like him and a lot of others who will be glad to tell you that they are the reason for every good thing that's happened. They convince themselves that because they know this person, or that person’s cell phone number that they are somehow more entitled than you are to make decisions about how your tax money will be spent. They convince themselves, like the North Chattanooga Review Board has done, that it's ok for them to break the law because no one can do anything about it. Prove them wrong.
No one can take credit, or ownership for a group effort that involved all the citizens of Chattanooga. Chattanooga has been rebuilt on the wishes and cares of a million people. Some participated more than others, but remember, if you see someone waving a flag and screaming "look at me, look at me." They're probably just acting out a wicked inferiority complex.
This town belongs to all of us. There exists in this town a small group of people who are trying to sell all of us manure and tell us that it's gold dust. And they are doing it for the most selfish of reasons. Greed.
Go to the city council meeting tonight and tell them how you feel.
Fil Manley
http://www.ilovecoolidgepark.com