Why Downtown Morristown Has Sidewalks in the Air

Almost every visitor asks the same question walking up West Main Street: why is there a second sidewalk one story above the first?

A 1960s answer to the shopping mall When enclosed malls started pulling retail out of American downtowns, Morristown answered with something no other city in the country committed to at this scale — a raised network of walkways connecting second-floor storefronts above the street. It was branded the Skymart, and it is still the only elevated public sidewalk system of its kind.

What is up there now Decades of retail churn later, the upper level is a mix of offices, studios, restaurants with balcony seating and a genuinely good view down Main. The lower level carries most of the foot traffic, but the overhead walkways are what make downtown photograph like nowhere else in Tennessee.

Making an afternoon of it Park once and walk. Coffee and lunch downtown, the shops along Main, the Rose Center just up the hill in the old 1892 school building, and Crockett Tavern Museum if you want the Davy Crockett history that Morristown is actually named around.

Why it still matters Downtown investment has come in waves here, and the walkways have survived every one of them. They are a reminder that this city has been willing to try things — which is the same instinct behind the storefronts opening today.