Little ways to Rock the Establishment

Oct. 24 – Little Rock, AR

Downtown Little Rock is trying hard to be Open For Business, with here and there a successful result. On Main Street, festive tree lighting and the presence of one the best-respected professional theatre companies in the U.S. belie the fact that most storefronts are vacant, even boarded up. On the other hand, at least the majority of storefronts are still extant at all, and those few businesses that operate are the kind that thrive in beleaguered mid-size business districts: wig shops, tattoo parlors, stamp and coin dealers.

On adjacent downtown blocks, any historic building stock that might have existed has been replaced with more recent urban renewal. Then again, it's been replaced pretty thoroughly, and these blocks retain the urban feel of uninterrupted architecture, with few injections of bare, open asphalt. These are the blocks of banking, service industries and the obligatory state and county government agencies. Employees of this district, largely unseen during daylight hours, are issued forth in quick umbrella-laden spurts at lunch breaks and at the daily close of business. There are a handful of delicatessens and at least one bar that cater primarily to this lunch crowd.

Nearby there are some spot attractions: the old State House, the River Market shopping development, and things having to do with President Clinton. And a vintage trolley, which someone other than its riders is clearly paying for. But between these locations and those times of day, most of the people seen out and about seem there by accident or circumstance. In the spacious concrete plaza in front of one bank building, four people milled about without purpose, one confined to a wheelchair. Others in the neighborhood were conducting matters of random business at county offices. Some were union members on smoke breaks. And some were panhandlers.

(I will never understand panhandlers. Why they ply their trade in areas where so few of the people have much to give, and where there is so much competition from other members of the industry, is beyond me. But I suppose if these folks could invent a more successful business model, they wouldn't be panhandling.)

Nevertheless, there is a pocket culture in this city. One corner cafe draws a modest crowd of Hip Young People, the kind who enjoy things like the arts, alternative newsweeklies, and Being Different. The piano bar, a humble sole proprietorship, seems to be doing as good a business as anything in Little Rock has a right to. And various establishments sport "Best Of" stickers, with a cartoon Bill Clinton pointing out somebody's picks for defiant undermining of the Big Box commercial mentality. Never mind that the Urban Non-Conformity Lifestyle seems poised to be a multi-billion-dollar industry in its own right. In a city of two hundred thousand, with "Best Of" stickers, panhandlers and a piano bar, I feel as much at home as just about anywhere.

View Larger Map