Chattanooga: Old Farmers' Market sees return of onions

A formerly homeless man has been putting his artistic touch on an area that city officials hope eventually will help people get off the streets.

What did Ron Asberry paint on a sign at the old Farmers’ Market property on East 11th Street?

Onions.

The area holding the old market site — city property where a homeless services center is planned — has been known as “Onion Bottom,” Mayor Ron Littlefield said.

“It was always somewhat of a poverty-stricken part of town,” he said. “It was called ‘Onion Bottom’ because there was a city dump down there and it was constantly burning and, according to (former) Mayor (Gene) Roberts, it smelled like onions.”

Mr. Littlefield said an area represented by a potent, often-smelly vegetable doesn’t hurt the city’s efforts to attract homeless service providers there. Such “folk art” gives the city property some more personality, he said.

“It sparks a little more interest than just having outdated signs there for things that are no longer located there,” he said.

Mr. Asberry, who now lives in Brainerd, has been volunteering in a supervisory role with the handful of summer youth workers being paid to paint at the site. Mr. Littlefield said Mr. Asberry expressed interest in painting, and he was given paint and free rein to decorate the old sign.

One side of the sign, easily visible to drivers and pedestrians heading down East 11th Street, features a Vidalia onion, while the flip side shows a yellow onion.

Mr. Asberry, who finished the onion murals last week, said he just wants to share a gift for painting.

“I’m out to beautify the entire city,” said Mr. Asberry, 53.

In addition to the paintings, Mr. Littlefield said the Coca-Cola Co. donated a new building sign that shows off the area as “Historic Onion Bottom.”

Mr. Littlefield said the sign likely will change when new tenants come to the site, which now houses no agencies or services and is used only to store city property. When some group comes to the property, he said, the onion art probably will go elsewhere.