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!

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!

On Thursday May 31st, we were privileged to join the celebration and unveiling of Life Energy– a collaborative community art beautification project coordinated by local arts non-profit, Mark Making. In partnership with Public Art Chattanooga, Chattanooga Department of Transportation, and Orchard Knob Middle School, Brainerd, Howard, and Hixon High Schools, Mark Making facilitated workshops in which 133 students from East Chattanooga competed to have their designs painted on six traffic cabinets around the neighborhood. The project challenged the students to not only explore how art can beautify the neighborhood but also integrate the knowledge of electrical circuitry into those designs, all while further understanding the power of citizen involvement in the community.

The six winning designers, Sarah Bargerstock, Daisha Draper and Kensha Moore, Sabrina Eldridge, Cody Hutchinson, Jade Sharp, and Xavier Wood, were congratulated by Mayor Andy Burke as their art was officially dedicated as part of the on-going effort to strengthen the community through intentional acts of advocacy and citizen participation. The celebration continued with refreshments at Mark Marking studio.

Jade Sharp, one of the local student winners addressed the crowd of her friends, neighbors, and reporters directly after Katelyn Kirnie and Frances McDonald. Jade reminded us that: “Every community has issues. Making art can also make changes. That’s what I hope to do as a professional artist someday.” Well said Jade, and we agree that each of these students is off to a strong start positively impacting their city and peers.

Keep your eye out for these beautiful student contributions to the greater East Chattanooga neighborhoods!

Through a generous grant from the Lillian Colby Foundation we were able to commission Rondell Crier and his apprentices at Studio Everything to create custom signage and furniture for our new space. They crafted a gorgeous conference table, custom shelving, desk modifications, and the new sign to hang out front, clearly letting neighbors know where to stop by and gather to discuss the health and progress along Glass Street.

In partnership with the building’s owner, we plan to activate the space for a three-year period, recruit a new quality tenant, and restart the process in another vacant building. If the opportunity arises to purchase our own building, we have the flexibility to speed up the process, as long as another quality tenant is able to take over our lease.  The property owner contributed $15,000 to this project. Through grant funds from the Educational Foundation of America, Lyndhurst Foundation, and Lillian Colby Foundation, GHC contributed $35,000 and received another $15,000-$20,000 in donated services through contracting and design discounts, and volunteer hours and Lowe’s Grant support from Habitat for Humanity of Greater Chattanooga.

This model is intentional. We want to demonstrate real investment into the community, and intend that the progress we work toward is equitable and open to all local business owners working to inspire the continued growth of pride and confidence in the area.

To that end we have designed this space to be used by our neighbors, and look forward to hosting community meetings and other gatherings here. We invite you to join us the first Monday evening of every month for our Good Neighbor Network meetings, where business owners, nonprofit partners, and neighbors come together to share a meal, voice their concerns, and come up with ideas for ways to improve their neighborhood.

Our new office space looks incredible. Glass House Collective is now in a better position to achieve our Business Development Mission to improve local business viability. As we host more events and invite more business owners to visit us, we showcase the potential of the vacant and underutilized buildings along Glass Street.

As we increase foot traffic in the neighborhood, we celebrate the distinctiveness of this historic area and remind people that it is worthy of investment. When GHC is ready to move on to a new space, a new tenant will occupy the office, and the vibrancy of East Chattanooga will continue to grow. We have learned that good partnerships are essential, renovation costs are always higher and the timeline is always slower than expected, and while it is worthwhile to hire locally based sub-contractors, and innovate a process with a commercial space we do not own ourselves, these factors have presented communication and progress challenges that take time, tenacity, and patience on all sides.

We are planning to ramp up our business development efforts along Glass Street. In an effort to maintain affordability in the neighborhood, GHC has decided to pursue ownership of a building, land, or both. We are in the process of making a donation request to the city and county for a building that they own on Glass Street. If we are granted the property, we plan to explore the option of co-ownership with Studio Everything, and recruit tenants to rent out the remaining space. This renovation process has given us the knowledge and the confidence to take on a new role on Glass Street.

As property owners, we will continue to spark positive change in East Chattanooga, and we hope to increase the sustainability of our organization through earned revenue. Another avenue we’re exploring to achieve our mission of business development is the formation of a Glass Street Business Association. We hope to help strengthen the existing businesses and grow the number of business owners, resulting in increased economic development and job opportunities for our neighbors. The first step in achieving these goals was to complete the renovation of our new space, bringing life to a formerly vacant building.

To transition, Nicole Lewis, GHC Community Relations Manager, led the group around the corner to our newly completed office space at 2513 N. Chamberlain Ave. to hear about the new renovation work there, at the formerly vacant commercial space. Addressing our collective residential improvement lens, Daniel Gamble introduced their Neighborhood Revitalization partnership with us through Habitat for Humanity of Greater Chattanooga, and shared a video clip of a recent dramatic home rehab project over on Stuart Street.

Finally, the group wandered down the street to meet Rondell Crier at Studio Everything. The group enjoyed a quick stop by Gloria Coleman’s shop, Designs by Gloria, along the way– having just listened to Nicole Lewis share Gloria’s story about finding a connection through Good Neighbor Network and Habitat volunteering to lease a space of her own from Tina Jones, owner of Ashanti’s Hair Designs.

At Studio Everything, Rondell shared photos and real life examples of the artistic pieces he creates in the studio, along with his model for how to accomplish place-based work that stays relevant and flexible within an under-resourced community. Participants were invited to wander around the studio to see the work samples close up and engage with conversation and questions with Rondell about his open process, and his overarching belief that neighborhood work is always personal.

We deeply enjoyed our time together, and only wish there could have been a few more faces out in our neighborhood from the conference. For those who did attend, thank you for your thoughtful questions and engagement. Remember to keep in touch via our newsletter! It’s a great way to track the activity we sponsor and advocate. We were delighted to be able to participate in the rest of the Summit thanks to our conference registration costs being provided by our grant from the Tennessee Arts Commission.

Glass House Collective surveyed neighbors back in 2014 and cleaner, safer, and more inviting were the top 3 adjectives that kept coming up. We had neighbors who were handicapped and elderly, but the roads were not ADA handicap accessible. We have tons of youth who couldn’t walk on the sidewalk together because it was so narrow, cars were driving fast and not slowing down. These were concerns to neighbors so they became concerns for us.

We received community input on how, where, and what should be designed at the corner of North Chamberlain and Glass Street.  ADA handicap accessible sidewalks, streetlights, curb bump outs, traffic calming trees were all installed based on the design the neighbors put in. We want to do the same down at the corner of Dodson and Glass Street.

What should the intersection look like? We have neighborhood run businesses like Ms. Tee’s BBQ and Soul Food and JJ’s Lounge, and a couple others, but the streetscpaing isn’t set up for them to receive the maximum amount of customers. The corner of Dodson Ave. and Glass St. sits on the Glass Farm, Avondale and Boyce Station marker, and we hope everybody can enjoy this area.

We need neighbors input on what should go there and how it should be designed. We look forward to seeing you next Thursday.

Special finishing touches include a “yarn bomb” style knitted sweater and sliced wood grain walking stick to immortalize those crafted and constantly in use by the subject himself. In his retirement, Mr. Larry enjoys creating unique walking sticks for his trips along trails or just around the neighborhood. He was so pleased to contribute portions of his own creations to add character and authenticity to his larger-than-life portrait.

The portrait is installed in the pocket park at the Chamberlain and Glass intersection, replacing the beloved trolly formerly installed her by the same artistic duo. Building owner, Mike Long approved the installation, and we’re glad for his cooperation with the project. There are plans in the works to add portraits of a few more neighbors to keep Mr. Larry company, and we’re eager to see what beautiful work Olga creates next.

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!