Flag returns to its 440-foot perch in East Memphis

Friday, April 29, 2011

The Commercial Appeal- Memphis, TN
By Tom Bailey Jr.
 
The crowning symbol in East Memphis returned to its 440-foot perch above the Poplar Corridor Thursday morning.

A three-man crew strained with the rigging to re-raise the large U.S. flag that has been a fixture for 40 years atop Clark Tower.

The landmark building had been without a flag since the April 4 storm broke its rigging and had Old Glory hanging over the edge of the roof.

As soon as the 60 pounds of new cloth unfurled at 10:15 a.m. Wednesday, the flapping flag revealed the wind direction like a weather vane.

“Wind’s out of the west,” said Ron Riley, executive vice president of In-Rel, which owns Clark Tower. He was among a handful of people on top of the rooftop mechanical building, the base for the 60-foot flagpole.

The first thing Riley did for a few visitors was soothe their nerves about the roof’s rail-less edges. He encouraged them to ease over to the side and look down.

“There’s a parapet,” he said. “If you were to fall, you’re only going to fall 6 feet.”

On a clear day like Wednesday, Gold Strike Casino is visible 46 miles away in Tunica.

Clark Tower’s chief engineer, Jackie Johnson, helped Shane Moore and Jason Daniels of The Flag Pole & Banner Center raise the flag.
“All the way!” Johnson said as they pulled the flag near the top of the pole. “There it is, right there.”

Although the effort lacked ceremony, Johnson felt moved by the ritual. He extended his hand to Moore and Daniels, saying, “I feel honored to do this.”

The winds atop the 33-floor building are so strong they tatter the flag every three months, the pace that In-Rel replaces them.
Clark Tower’s flag tradition had a colorful beginning.

Mayor Henry Loeb loaned a city flag to William B. Clark Sr. to hang on the side of the building before the topping-out ceremony in the early 1970s, recalled Nick Clark. He’s the grandson and son of the men who built the 650,000-square-foot building, Clark Sr. and William B. “Buck” Clark Jr.

Teenagers climbed to the 27th floor of the unsecured building, pulled the flag in through a window and stole it.

“But because of the public affection for the flag being displayed in East Memphis and the reaction when it was stolen, my grandfather decided the patriotic thing to do would be put a flag on top of the building,” Nick Clark said.

– Tom Bailey Jr.: 529-2388