Chattanooga returns one of several benches removed downtown, others planned

Staff Photo by Ellen Gerst / A public bench, seen Friday, at Phillips Park on Georgia and McCallie avenues near downtown Chattanooga was replaced this month, after the city removed it and several others in the area in the fall, citing problems with panhandling and harassment around them. The bench was replaced just days after a group placed its own wooden bench in the park. Staff Photo by Ellen Gerst / A public bench, seen Friday, at Phillips Park on Georgia and McCallie avenues near downtown Chattanooga was replaced this month, after the city removed it and several others in the area in the fall, citing problems with panhandling and harassment around them. The bench was replaced just days after a group placed its own wooden bench in the park.

By Ellen Gerst January 23, 2023 5 min read

One of several public benches removed from downtown Chattanooga in the fall has been reinstalled by the city after a group of residents installed their own bench in its place as an artistic statement.

The city also plans this month to return a group of six benches removed from Market Street near the courthouse, spokesperson Kirsten Yates said in a phone call Monday. Others will be replaced on a rolling basis, Yates said.

The missing bench at Phillips Park was replaced as part of a public art push by a group calling itself the Urbanist Society, but that’s not why the city started replacing the removed benches, Chattanooga Mayor Tim Kelly said Monday.

“I wasn’t offended by it at all,” Kelly said in a phone interview. “It’s a kind of community conversation, so no, I think it’s great. I didn’t object to it in the least.”