Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1870-05-14
THE GLORIEs OF FRONT STREET
A Scheme of Rsform.-.An Old Rooksry.

The concentration of street railway
lines at the intersection of Court and
Front streets will make the property OF
Court, between Front and Court Square,
very valuable. The point of concentra-
ton of street railways in st. Louis is the
best business property in the city, and
there the streets have been widened and
magnificent structures nave been erected,
and there retail dealers flourish in all de-
partments of mercantile activity. Even
so it must be in Memphis. Court street,
Union and Madison, dry goods, money
and grocery markets, will have distinct
i've features IA gather wealth, and COM
pei the aggregation of capital. On the
north side of Court street, fronting fifty
feet on Front, there stands a wretched old
rookery, a fit habitation for owls and
bats, which should be demolished by
bombshells or the more explosive City
Council. Such property, in such a con-
dition, at such a point, is a public calami-
ty. Unfortunately the owners, not an
ticipating the Intervention of Col. Alex
ander in the management of the street
railroads, have never dreamed of changes
he has wrought. They did not antici-
pate the augmentation of property values
which this perfection of the street rail-
road system would beget. The old
wrecks of buildings, relics of a former
age, are leased for a term of years. The
~lessees' interest in the property will not
admit of expenditures on their part and
the owners are equally impotent. It thus
happens that the Intervention OF a third
party is necessary to secure che demoli-
ton of the old buildings and erection
of new.
1t has been proposed that the Chamber
of Commerce buy out the leaseholders
and contract with the property hold
ers for the erection on this most valu-
able lot of a building worthy of the
merchants of Memphis and profitable TO
those having interest in it. Such a struc-
ture, fifty by one hundred and fifty feet,
might contain a hall for the Board of
Trade, for the Cotton Brokers, and for the
Chamber of Commerce, in which business
transactions may be conducted rendered
impossible by the location of the hall now
occupied by the merchants assOcia ion.
There is no difficulty in effscting this
scheme, unless parties in interest exact
too much for the lease, and unless the
property-owners fix tool high a value upon
the property. Let all this be adjusted by
uninterested persons and the scheme may
be perfected. If not at this point, it surely
may be accomplished at ONE other.
There are fifty merchants in the city who
will invest $500 each in such a building,
for such purposes. In fact, no Investment
could be more profitable, and the lot
owners will invest the ground at valua-
ton. as part of the capital stock of the
chartered company. Thus Memphis may
boast of a public building worthy of the
city, of the taste, energy and spirit of this
mercantile community. Banks, bankers
and every tradesman is directly interest
Ell in the contamination of the scheme,
and there is not a resident merchant who
will not aid in the promotion of ends con-
templated. A building that costs 500, 900
should stand at the intersection of Court
and Front streets. 1t should contain the
offices of cotton dealers, who may thus be
brought together as are Memphis bankers
on Madison street. Will the old rOOkerX
disappear? Will there rise in its stead ~
most tasteful pile of brick and moi r
chat attracts the gaze of every behOder
who measures the city's prosperity, as
seen from countless steamers, by the
s~plendors of Front street?