Three of Chattanooga’s landmark public spaces have important birthdays this year.
The Tennessee Aquarium turns 25 years old, Hamilton Place mall marks 30 years, and the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga McKenzie Arena (a.k.a. the Roundhouse, a.k.a. the UTC Arena) celebrates its 35th year.
All this makes me feel old.
As a reporter for The Chattanooga Times during the ’80s and ’90s, I covered “opening day” at each of these venues. I remember when they all were sparkling new properties that filled us Chattanoogans with justifiable pride.
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I was there the first time the UTC Arena opened its doors to ticketholders on Oct. 8, 1992. A sold-out audience watched Kenny Rogers sing a collections of his hits, including “The Gambler” and “Lucille.” You’d be hard-pressed to find anyone born before 1970 who can’t sing the chorus to both of those No. 1 hits.
Everybody, now “You picked a fine time to leave me, Lucille “
OK. My apologies to all of you baby boomers who will now be lamenting “Lucille” for the remainder of the day.
Two vivid memories from covering the opening of the UTC Arena, as it was called in the beginning: 1) Ticketholders there were aghast at the steepness of the upper-level seats. And 2) The acoustics were awful – a problem that was somewhat corrected over the years.
Over time, our family has made great memories at the arena. We’ve attended monster truck competitions, concerts, Harlem Globetrotters games, Ringling Brothers circus performances and too many UTC Mocs basketball games to count. Last year, we watched a mind-blowing Cirque du Soleil performance at the arena that our two kids will never forget.
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When Hamilton Place mall opened in 1987, I remember being dispatched to cover first-day customer reaction there. I grew up in an era when shopping malls were built along straight lines, and I recall being bewildered by the dogleg shape of Hamilton Place. For years I had trouble getting my bearings there.
Two memories from Hamilton Place:
When I first became a columnist in 1992, I remember feeling oddly prideful that you could buy a newspaper at the mall. Remember, 25 years ago, suburban malls like Hamilton Place were the temples of American commerce, and being part of a product – any product – sold at the mall somehow made you feel like you’d arrived.
Later, I bought a wedding ring at the mall and, later still, entertained our toddler children at the indoor playground with its padded bridges and stationary cars.
Nowadays, the mall is where we go to buy summer reading books and sneakers. It’s not so much a temple, now, as an old friend whom you wish good health.
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When the Tennessee Aquarium opened in 1992, I was part of a team of reporters sent down to do person-on-the-street interviews.
People gushed about Chattanooga’s new architectural gem. Even the most optimistic civic boosters of 1992, however, would never have imagined how the aquarium would come to anchor the city’s urban renaissance, which continues to this day.
A few years ago, when my younger son was about 7 years old, he and I rediscovered the Tennessee Aquarium. There for awhile, we went several times a month during the winter months – enough to learn some of the penguins by name.
I wrote at the time: “When all our usual outdoor options were closed for the winter, we could count on our aquarium membership to pass a Sunday afternoon. Despite all the visual wonders there, it was the penguin exhibit – specifically the place were you dip your hand into the ice-cold water – that seemed to delight him the most.”
As delightful as they were new, the mall, the arena and the aquarium are even more important to Chattanoogans now because they are the backdrops to our lives. For example, somewhere embedded in their walls are the echoes of my sons’ giggles.
That’s personal.
I hope I don’t live long enough to see any of the three structures abandoned or demolished.
I frankly don’t think my heart could bear it.
Contact Mark Kennedy at mkennedy@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6645.