Glass Street Chronicle

Each year at our annual block party, Glass Street LIVE, great effort is made to bring in new entertainment, new partners, and new experiences that will make this community celebration unique and memorable year over year. 2021 is no exception as we plan to roll out details in the next few weeks!

What is also new this year that many won’t see is what is happening behind the scenes right now and in the months leading up to the big day. Chattanooga Neighborhoods Arts Partnership (ChattaNAP or CNAP) has partnered with us this year and we are thrilled to co-create this event with them. With the event planning process shifted to an all-volunteer and resident-led steering committee, the Glass House Collective staff are proud to stay involved in an active and supportive role while the committee guides the vision on everything from marketing and logistics to volunteer recruitment and booking entertainment and activities.

COVID-19 protocols are in place and we even have a health committee (s/o to Anthony Watkins) leading the efforts on working to provide a vaccine clinic at the event.

Making residents the backbone of Glass Street LIVE started in 2019 with the turn toward a structure of shared power and shared responsibility. We did not host Glass Street LIVE in 2020 due to COVID-19. We are excited to be back at it! This committee-led structure also creates opportunities for these emerging leaders and community organizers to get hands-on experience in the process of working collectively toward a shared goal. These same skills can be put to good use in so many other aspects of community mobilizing and organizing in the neighborhood throughout the year.

If you would like to volunteer, please fill in this form.

If you would like to be a  non-profit booth or vendor, please fill in this form.

Facebook event link here.

For more info, email info@glasshousecollective.org

The 2021 Glass Street LIVE Steering Committees:

Marketing Committee – This committee helps secure media spots, gets the word out on social media, and hands out event flyers. Pastor JaMichael Jordan, Justine Jones, Tina Stewart

Entertainment Committee: This committee is responsible for securing all the musical acts for the day such as poets, dancers, rappers, musical acts, and DJ. Serving on this committee are: Deborah Bledsoe,  Erika Roberts, Ric Morris

Activities Committee: This committee is responsible for securing all the activities throughout the day, especially the Kid’s Corner: Serving on this committee are:  Audrey McClure, Lynesha Lake, Daniel Gamble, Teal Thibaud, Anthony Watkins (health)

Logistics Committee: This committee is responsible for setting the event up and taking it back down. Street closures, what goes where, and who does what. Serving on this committee are: Rosalyn Stewart, Tina Stewart, Tara Poole, Daniel Gamble

Volunteer Committee: This committee works to recruit and schedule all the event volunteers who will be working in different capacities on the day of the block party. Serving on this committee are: Alan Shropshire, Joyce Watson, Daniel Gamble, Erika

Vendor Committee: This committee works to secure vendors in our market place include food vendors, pop-ups, and non-profit booths. Serving on this committee are: Mimi Dunigan

2021 Committee includes: Ricardo Morris, Tina Stewart, Rosalyn Stewart, Mimi Dunigan, Pastor JaMichael Jordan, Audrey McClure, Deborah Bledsoe
Ricardo Nache, Lynesha Lake, Rose Prince, Justine Jones, Katherlyn Geter, Wayne Brown, Myra Cook, Levar Wilson, Joe Lautigar, Ericka Holmes, C-Grimey
Anthony Watkins, Sasse, Bishop Freddie Hambrick, Gail McKeel, Terry Williams, Daniel Gamble, Tara Poole, Erika Roberts, Lynesha Lake, and Teal Thibaud

Shout out to our 2019 Committee:  Glenda Welcher, Belinda, Darrell Martin, Carmen Davis, Reggie Campbell, David Raley, Rocksand Martin, Joel Tippins, Tinica Caperton, Janette Richie, Dr. Holmes, Carlos Hampton, Alan Shropshire, Joyce Watson, Erika Roberts, Justine Jones, Deborah Bledsoe, Gail MckKeel, Joe Latiuger, and Greg Alford

Now in its 7th year, Glass Street LIVE! is a true community event steered by resident-led committees who are doing everything from curating the music, vendors and family activities, to pushing out publicity and social media, to working with City officials on event logistics and street closures. Glass House Collective is proud to partner with and support our hard working neighbors to co-create our favorite day of the year!

Come meet your neighbors on Glass Street while checking out some of Chattanooga’s busiest non profits and neighborhood organizations like Chattanooga Girls Rock, Southeast Conservation Corps and the Glass Farm Block Leaders. Browse your favorite food and art vendors and pop-up boutiques while sharing your East Chattanooga memories at the Pop Up interactive History Museum.

Bounce over to the action-packed kid zone for live wrestling, a bounce house and more!

NEW THIS YEAR! A very special Glass Street History Performance Art experience featuring spoken word, choreography and original music will be presented thanks to a NeighborRoots Grant from Public Art Chattanooga and the City of Chattanooga! This exclusive and site-specific piece created for and about Glass Street is a collaboration between The Pop Up Project, Velvet Poetry Productions, Brophesor X and Glass House Collective.

We can’t wait to see everyone on Glass Street on November 9th!

Committee Members include:

Deborah Bledsoe, Glenda Welcher, Larry Hines, Gail McKeel, Belinda, Greg Alford, Image Noveick, Alan shropshire, Justine Jones, Tina Stewart, Darrell Martin, Chip Brown, Veronica Woods, Audrey McClure, Carmen Davis, Reggie Campbell, Lynsha Lake, Joe Lautigar, David Raley, C-Grimey, Jonathan Susman, Joyce Watson, Joel Tippins, Tinica Caperton
Janette Richie, Dr. Holmes, Carlos Hampton, and Stephanie Hurt.

Highlights from the day include that awesome streetscape simulator, watching all the Glass Street superheroes in their new capes, Gospel On Glass, delicious food made by our neighbors, and local art from around the community.

The Glass Farm Block Leaders booth was a busy place as Miss Janette and her volunteers gathered surveys and input from the neighborhood to select the design for new house banners for the Glass Farm historic district. The winning design will be revealed at this year’s Christmas party on Friday night! Janette said the survey participation during Glass Street Live was terrific and she really appreciates everyone who took the time to stop by the GFBL booth. Remember if you participated in the survey and signed up to receive a free house banner, free banners will be given to the first 50 who come to the Christmas Party Friday night, December 14th, at 6pm at 2523 Glass Street.

It was great to see so many people interact with the streetscape installation, lead by architect, David Barlew. Glass Farm resident, Johnny Patmon, volunteered to help kick things off in the morning and said he appreciates how the block party became a place for productive conversations directly with the community who are impacted and advocating for change on Glass Street. “Thats who you should ask in the first place, is the community who wants to see change and improvement in their community. So we asked people if they lived in the neighborhood and for how long because that’s important,” he said.

Feedback on the streetscaping proposal and signatures of support were gathered in different ways throughout the day at Glass Street LIVE! Barlew said that Gail McKeel, who has lived near Glass Street for years, prepared several signs expressing different opinions of the mock-up and streetscaping plans. “Visitors to the installation were asked to pose for pictures with signs of their choosing that expressed their opinion of the proposed scheme. In all, Gail collected more than fifty photos of individuals, friends, couples, neighbors, and families sharing their thoughts about the mock-up,” David said. The pictures will be delivered to CDOT to show support for the proposed streetscaping.

As usual, Glass Street Live’s food vendor’s did not disappoint. In fact, Miss Dunyetta of D’s Eggroll’s says the block party continues to be a great venue for her small business and 2018 was her best year yet. “GSL is great for exposure. It opens our menu up to a lot of new customers. It’s so exciting to see the people and the support that they gave us. We really enjoyed ourselves,” she said.

GHC Community Relations Manager, Nicole Lewis, spent the day helping some of the neighborhood’s youngest superheroes earn their capes. Judging from the number of capes buzzing around Glass Street Saturday afternoon, the Capes and Superheroes activity was a hit. “The kids really enjoyed completing the tasks,” Lewis said. Be on the lookout for a fun campaign coming in the new year to celebrate these young neighbors who are superheroes for their neighborhood.  Also, a special shout out to Leo Ascarate. Leo screen printed Glass Street on the back of the capes. Thank you, Leo!!!

Hardly last and never least, starting the day with a full program from Gospel on Glass was the best. GOG curator and musical director, Deborah Bledsoe, did an amazing job selecting the performers and pulling the stage together. Miss Deborah said the whole day “felt like a big holiday celebration with friends and family!” Indeed.

Let’s do it again next year !

REVISIT THE DAY! Browse the photos here

In 2017 residents imagined a landscaped Glass Street by leaving their remarks on an interactive activity at GSL that invited color-coded post-it style feedback to indicate preferences for green space, desired or undesired land use, and a color for new ideas.

Project coordinator, David Barlew, with David Barlew Architects, said some of last year’s feedback has made it into this year’s interactive visioning activity at the block party.

To keep things manageable, David’s team will be using a 30 foot stretch of Glass Street between 2200-2300 Glass Street to take some of the ideas off the drawing board, and attempt to temporarily illustrate them on a human scale.

This short block was chosen as the “life sized street sketch” for a few reasons including the desire for wider sidewalks and a more pedestrian friendly area in general. This stretch includes existing 9 foot sidewalks already, making a great jumping off place to expand on that pedestrian-friendly idea.

Working off the 9’ sidewalks will be crafted indications of additional greenways and areas where planted strips could be installed acting as a buffer between Glass Street shoppers and traffic. A temporary median will be created for David’s “street sketch” using live trees. Trees and patches of grass sod will also be strategically placed accompanied by written marks to easily indicate new curb heights and other measurements and ideas the street sketch is proposing.

The most important thing about this project right now is that it gathers signatures of support and resident advocates to let city officials know that infrastructure improvements are needed in East Chattanooga and that residents want those budget dollars invested where we live.

Your neighbors will be walking around with clipboards asking residents for their support of streetscaping improvements to the area. Participating by signing your name is one way the community can be champions for their future. Become an advocate for where you live by letting officials know what projects are important to you. Together we can make this happen. We are always careful to take time to gain input. Together we can help to turn input into action!

Don’t miss this temporary installation at Glass Street LIVE!

Did you give your input recently about ideas for the new house banners for Glass Farm residents? This summer and early Fall, the Neighborhood Pride committee – including Block Leader, Miss Janette, business owner, Mr Joe, emerging young leader, Asia, and Pops, who has been living and renting in the Glass Farm area for a few years –  reached out and had conversations with their neighbors about what the community was most proud of and what they wanted to see represented on the new house banners.

The committee worked with their neighbors so that ideas from the residents of Glass Farm and the business owners along Glass Street would be shared with the creative team designing the banners for homes and light poles.

The design team took all the neighborhood input, worked hard and listened closely. Now that design proposals are in, there will be one more chance at Glass Street LIVE! for residents to choose the best design idea that will become the new banner.

Miss Janette is encouraging residents to visit the Glass Farm Block Captain tent at Glass Street LIVE! this Saturday. She will be on hand with volunteers helping distribute simple surveys for residents to fill out while attending the block party to help choose the best design for Glass Farm.

“The biggest number of votes for any one design will be the one chosen. So this is your chance to vote while the designs are in the booth and surveys ready,” Miss Janette said.

Also if you are one of the first 50 residents to give input  just remember to leave your contact information and receive a free house banner once they are produced. You can be one of the first Glass Farm residents to hang the new banner on your home!

Janette says she believes things can improve when more people in the neighborhood are involved in what goes on in their neighborhood and choose to get involved in shaping what’s coming next.

“House banners and a Pride program will help too. We want more people interested in what’s in their neighborhood now and what’s about to take place in their neighborhood. It will be alot better.”

Miss Janette says that this project is nearly complete. She hopes to receive a lot of surveys for the best design at Glass Street LIVE! so the committee can get the banners produced and delivered to residents soon.

Don’t miss the chance to leave your vote and check out what the committee and creative team accomplished after gathering input and inspiration from the community.

Glass House Collective would like to thank Miss Janette for her leadership and helping see this project through. We are proud and grateful of her entire committee, Mr. Joe, Pops, Asia, for their time and effort bringing in community ideas and new voices.  We would also like to thank the project’s funders from The Lillian Colby Foundation. We can not wait to see these banners hanging proudly on homes in the coming months!

Now in its 5th year, Glass Street LIVE couldn’t happen without our partners, sponsors and extraordinary neighbors. If you are interested in becoming an event sponsor just click here and complete this simple form.  We can help your business or organization stand out by becoming an official sponsor of Glass Street LIVE 2018!  For more information on our sponsorship program please contact Tara Poole:  tara@glasshousecollective.org | 423-402-0565

Sign up to be a GSL Volunteer and Vendor:

Planning to attend? Follow the event page on Facebook and let us know!

After weeks of hard work, it was exciting to Grow Hope Urban Farms’ mobile farm stand used according to its design: to increase fresh food options along with use by local vendors like Tina from Ashanti’s hair designs who used one of the tables to sell her famous lemonade. Non-profit partners lined their booths along Crutchfield Ave. between Ms. Tee’s BBQ and the Sunnytown lot, so neighbors could easily access popular interactive stations like the giant chess game from the Chattanooga Public Library, low-voltage bulb-tester displays from green|spaces Empower, and handprints or personalized messages on the beams for Habitat for Humanity homes in the neighborhood.

Over 60 local residents spent time sharing their input about changes they want to prioritize for intersection improvements at the Glass House Collective booth with special large format representations of the intersection area where participants could place stickers that represent where they would prioritize benches, lighting, or tree wells to help make the intersection cleaner, safer, and more inviting to foot traffic and neighborly mingling. Parents were often occupied discussing the streets and sidewalks, or engaging in artistic impressions with the 800 Project artists or with Andrew Mollenkof from Build Me A World. So the kids either stayed entertained with a larger than life JENGA set built by Matt Dutton from large cardboard boxes or got their wiggles out in the inflatable bounce house.

Local artists transformed the Alabama Furniture building into a pop-up gallery space, featuring original work by a group of young (mainly UTC student) artists calling themselves Art Trap Collective. Many partygoers fell under the calming spell of the music combined with dreamscape paintings or photography. Near the large picture windows facing Dodson Ave., Leo Ascarate or Our Luck printers set up a shirt screen-printing station which was a huge hit with kids and adults alike. Meanwhile, the main stage hosted some of the areas finest musical performers like YKC Nation, a dance-off with Image and Skream, Differentdiva, DJ D-Whit, Kay B Brown, and emceed by C-Grimey.

Skaters were invited to try test their skills on the rails and jumps set up in the street, and until it got too cold for their engines, DJ LV had his crew out to show their classic cars, trucks, and bikes. Near the music stage, Boyce Station Neighborhood Association greeted guests and party-goers and proudly displayed their brand new sign. Nearby, friends of all ages, sizes, and colors, warmed up by gathering with Manny Strickland on his converted lounge bus called The Midnight Puff. The Friend Up parties organized by Eddie Yancey and Mary Helen Montgomery are all about getting friends together with a range of cultural backgrounds, and their goals were well aligned with the variety of diverse friends gathered Sunday in the spirit of friendship and common good. That bond was celebrated in the colorful community parade, which may have lacked volume without the drum beats we had hoped for, but still included cheers for our neighbors and partners, and bright hand-welded art bikes from Art 120 made last summer at the East Chatt YFD.

For the grand finale of the party, dancers took center stage after they wrapped up the end of the parade, with a contest that included some of the Zy’Mori Studios dancers along with local kids– with music from DJ D-Whit. Overall, the intersection looked great packed with people and energy, and lined temporary trees installed in specially built planter boxes made by Shawnquell, Christian, and Amari, with Rondell Crier’s guidance, at Studio Everything.

We’re so grateful to Shannon Burke of City Celebration for collaborating on this event, and a big thank you to our 2017 Glass Street LIVE sponsors: CHI Memorial, Tennessee Arts Commission, Pinnacle Bank, Office Furniture Warehouse, EPB of Chattanooga, The Mark Hite Team | Keller Williams Realty Downtown Chattanooga, Coca-Cola United, and Whitney Drayer. And to the whole collective of dedicated, creative, and ingenious partners who make events like Glass Street LIVE possible, even in the blustery cold! We’re proud to join you!
Enjoy this beautiful footage by Make Beautiful capturing the joy of the day!