‘The first of its kind’
City Beautiful celebrates 83 years
Memphis City Beautiful was established in July 1930, making it the first and oldest beautification commission in the nation.
According to “The History of the Memphis City Beautiful Commission and Its Impact on Our Lives” by Anne Whalen Shafer, published in 1995, “The Memphis City Beautiful Commission was the first of its kind in the nation, with no known counterpart in the world. It earned a reputation for excellence in the areas of community health, safety, and beauty, by bringing together all of the diverse people of a city which had been known for filth, disease, prejudice, corruption, and political conflict.”
Memphis City Beautiful was founded to spearhead a Riverfront Revitalization Project. The organization’s first job was to transform the then dismal and heavily trashed riverfront into a showplace of which Memphians could be proud. Five years later, Riverside Drive was opened and the city had a beautiful new “front door.”
Ever since then, City Beautiful has worked to make Memphis a clean and healthy place to live. The organization focuses on providing public education programs and other services designed to encourage all members of the community to take responsibility for improving the environment in which they live. And the group still supervises civic beautification projects designed to enhance the appearance of parks and other public spaces throughout Memphis. Downtown resident Cyndy Grivich Tucker is a program coordinator for Memphis City Beautiful.