Doing It Their Damn Selves
One December night, when driving on the Bailey Avenue overpass in Chattanooga, Tennessee, Jon Jon Wesolowski noticed a broken guardrail. He thought to himself, “the city should’ve put something up for pedestrians.” As he was about to leave, that thought evolved into, “I should do something about this.”
Still, Wesolowski was hesitant. He didn’t want to be held liable for installing a makeshift guardrail, but then had what he called a revelation: “From this moment forward, you already are liable.” In other words, he realized if he could do something, he should do something. Nearly a year later, he’s walking on the TEDx stage, revealing his identity to the public for the first time, and standing as a testament to “doing it your damn self.”
Wesolowski ultimately installed a wooden guardrail with the help of his neighbor. He did so in the dead of night, knowing it was illegal but also knowing that if he waited for the city to do something about it, he’d be waiting a while. Chattanooga, he says, doesn’t have the greatest record when it comes to street safety.
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“But I didn’t want people to know I did it,” he said. At the same time, he didn’t want the Tennessee or Chattanooga Departments of Transportation to get credit. “So I made up a fake group, made a logo for it, and created a TikTok account to claim the work. The video I posted got over 150K views the first week despite having 0 followers, and from that point, I knew this fake group I made was now very much a real group.”
That group is called Chattanooga Urbanist Society, or CUS for short, which, until now, has been the anonymous umbrella under which Wesolowski and his allies operated.
Repairing a guardrail was only the beginning. Some months later, CUS planted benches at some of Chattanooga’s 1,200 bus stops. Prior to that initiative, only 56 of those stops had any sort of shelter or seating and the city was actually in the process of removing benches downtown. In fact, the first bench—”more billboard than bench”—replaced one of the removed benches downtown and ended up being a collaboration between CUS and a local artist. The final result was colorful and read: “This bench is illegal but shouldn’t be.”
Like with the guardrail, Wesolowski posted it to social media. Over three million views later, the bench was spotlighted on the news and, more importantly, the city returned the original bench to the site within 72 hours. In fact, the same happened with his makeshift guardrail. Chattanooga filled it in with concrete a week after Jon Jon’s intervention, though onlookers were amused by the manpower required. ”6 trucks is BONKERS. Give my uncle a trowel, a bucket, and a 6 pack. He'll knock it out in 45 minutes,” one person commented on CUS’s Instagram post.
In the ensuing months, CUS focused on benches. CUS not only constructed and installed benches across the city, but taught others how to do the same. “By the beginning of next year, there will be more Chattanooga urbanist society benches at bus stops than covered ones built by the city,” Jon Jon noted.
Beginning from when he made an observation on Bailey Avenue to stepping onto the TEDx stage, Wesolowski characterizes much of the last year as a series of awakenings. And as he sees the “little fires” started by his own projects, he’s hoping that communities across the country awaken and recognize they don’t need a hero.
“The life of a city is measured by the safety and vitality of its citizens as pedestrians. In this facet, Chattanooga is failing,” he says. “But a group of people—not limited to the Chattanooga urbanist society—is taking action to make big changes.”
Asia (pronounced “ah-sha”) Mieleszko serves as a Staff Writer for Strong Towns. A dilettante urbanist since adolescence, she's excited to convert a lifetime of ad-hoc volunteerism into a career. Her unconventional background includes directing a Ukrainian folk choir, pioneering synaesthetic performances, photographing festivals, designing websites, teaching, and ghostwriting. She can be found wherever Wi-Fi is reliable, typically along Amtrak's Northeast Corridor.