Knoxville, Tennessee

As with any American city, the dominant feature of the Knoxville soundscape is the almighty car. With an extension of the interstate zooming only a few blocks from downtown, and a multi-lane surface road separating the University of Tennessee from the city centre, the empire of the automobile is hard to escape. But not impossible.

 

Along Gay Street, downtown Knoxville’s main drag, worlds collide to create a surprising oasis of quiet. The roar of automobile traffic is reduced to the occasional whoosh or honk of a single passing car, taking one back to the Old New World of ’50s America, a nostalgically simpler time that may exist only in our collective memory. 

 

Read more in the print edition.