A photo gig took me and my partner on a trip to Nashville - I got out a little bit to snap some photos. As others have expressed, I was pleasantly surprised by Nashville - don't know that I'd want to live there but they have some nice things happening there.

 

Though I'm not a fan of most country music, Dolly gets my vote :-)

 

An early flight made for some surreal cloud/sun combos:

 

I believe these are referred to as "them thar hills"

 

Taking the boat out early:

 

No clue what/where this is:

 

Either a meteor crater or a limestone quarry - yeah, I'm guessing meteor ;-)

 

Alright, on the ground and heading into downtown Nashville, the towers are part of The Gulch - a newer development southwest of downtown:

 

Broadway, the main drag of bars/clubs/kitsch souvenir shops, etc.

 

We stayed at the Renaissance - decent hotel and a decent view:

 

 

 

Since we had some time before my gig, we walked around a little - here's the iconic AT&T Building (aka "Batman Building"). I don't love it, but I dislike it a lot less after seeing it in person.

 

Nashville isn't all about new glassy towers - this is part of a kick@ss Egyptian revival church:

 

And the office tower across the street uses hints of Egyptian revival, albeit in proper PoMo fashion:

 

Another historic building:

 

Saw a sign saying "Arcade Building" - had to see how it compares to Cleveland's - pfft!!!  :lol:

 

Anyway, we head over to the Tennessee State Capitol:

 

 

We read that the Germantown area was "right next to" the Capitol - what we didn't read was that the Capitol is at the top of a rather steep hill. Looking west, not sure but I think the multi-colored residential in the distance is newer infill:

 

I wanted to grab this and stuff it in my carry-on but something tells me that TSA might have had a problem with that  :roll:

 

Okay, so we find out about the topography - we also realized (after the fact) that where we want to go is on the right but according to a visitor's guide we read - the best way to go was to the left. Did I mention there's no set of steps near the center? So we hoofed it down the steps on the left side. Grrr...

 

This is where they've done some poor planning - this is their Farmers Market (you can see it on the left in the photo above). On the other side of this is their Mall (like Cleveland's Mall A, B, and C). However a block to the left of this photo is right up there with Brookpark and Ridge Road in Parma - complete with check cashing, and KFC, Church's and Popeyes all in one block from each other.

 

Ah well, nice view of the skyline from here - and you can see just how high up the Capitol building sits:

 

But we backtracked and found the Germantown area - something along the lines of a miniature German Village in Columbus with a little bit of Cleveland's Ohio City. Operative word - miniature.

 

 

 

 

 

Landmark church in Germantown:

 

 

 

At this point we were getting hungry so we decided to try Monell's. http://monellsdining.ypguides.net/ Good thing we walked - this was served "family style". Now, in Cleveland when I hear family-style it means "large portions shared with everyone in your party" as opposed to individual entrees.

 

At Monell's it means you sit at long tables seating twelve or more people - whether you know those people or not. And like a family gathering, you pass dishes of - well, for us it was fried pork chops, fried chicken (best d@mn fried chicken I've had in years!), baked chicken, corn pudding, mac n cheese, green beans, you name it, oh - and dessert was banana pudding with 'nilla wafers. Again - glad we walked!

 

Anyhoo, not all of Germantown's housing is historic:

 

And fortunately, we found a flatter route back to downtown:

 

But a few more historic home shots:

 

 

Alright, time's a ticking and I need to get back:

 

Municipal Auditorium:

 

Transit Center on the left, along with a historic church:

 

Like another certain state capitol, Nashville has quite a few brutalist beasts in their skyline:

 

 

But I was genuinely surprised by some of the smaller historic buildings:

 

The Egyptian-revival styled Presbyterian Church, along with a new glass residential slab tower (Viridian). Granted the first nine or so floors are parking, but the Church Street facade features a small market like Cleveland's Constantino's.

 

Anyway, time to make use of the glass elevators at the hotel... see the parking lot at the bottom? It was slated to be the site for Signature Tower http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i188/ariesjow/Places/SigModel7.jpg - over 1,000 feet of residential but was canceled due to the economy  :|

 

 

The building on the left is sometimes called "R2D2":

 

One of the newest in Nashville's skyline - The Pinnacle at Symphony Place:

 

The landmark Ryman Auditorium:

 

As I was taking photos, I noticed the overcast skies clearing out - made for some nice lighting of the Viridian tower:

 

And what better way to make me feel welcome in Nashville!  :-D

 

 

Part two to come later!

 

 

 

I can't believe you walked over to Germantown.  That in-between area is really typical of the horrible walking environment of southern cities, and then that historic area is typically underwhelming. 

 

Too bad you weren't there on a sunnier day, because Nashville gets very golden sunlight and has very blue skies that that we never get in Ohio. 

A few of the days were better (wait for part 2 :-) ), and I can't believe we walked that either; it was in the mid-80s and huuuuumid. I was just glad to get out a little - most of my time was spent in the convention center. My partner actually walked from downtown to the park with the Parthenon (and got some good shots - also in part 2).

Not really feeling it outside of Broadway and Germantown. Thanks for a balanced look, though.

YOU...went to NASHVILLE?!?!

Read the first three words of my post :-)

eeeh

I have family outside Nashville and was just there in August. It's an OK city. Like most city's it's downtown has lost a lot of the retail stores. There used to be 3 large department stores in downtown Nashville. Harvey's was where the PoMo tower is now (across from the Egyptian revival church). Cain-Sloan was at the parking lot that was supposed to be the Signature Tower. Caster Knott was in the older building that you can see in the shot May Day took from the hotel's glass elevator looking towards the Capitol. It's the building just to the left of the rust colored pitched roof. That is the roof of the main library.

 

May Day - your partner must be in really good shape. The walk from your hotel to the Parthenon is almost 2 miles!

Thanks for the info about the library - I saw it and thought it must be either a museum or government building; I never actually made it over to see it at street level. I was also surprised to see a noticeable lack of major chain retail (the closest I saw was an American Apparel store) - sure, Cleveland's lost a lot but I guess I thought a newer city like Nashville might have more. I had no inclination to visit Nashville, but when a paid gig came up, that gave me the opportunity. Still, since I didn't know what to expect, I came away pleasantly surprised.

 

I met my partner at the gym, and both of us like to go for walks around interesting neighborhoods - our record is 11 miles in one day when we were in Chicago this past August :-)

Downtown looks pretty nice.  I'm going to TN this winter.

That library opened around 2001 and is an incredibly bad piece of today's neoclassical imitations. The proportions are cartoonish and the "hand-crafted" elements all look cheap.  Actually it looks a lot like a lot of the weird rural bible colleges that dot the south. 

 

The Schimerhorn symphony hall opened around 2005 and is a really fantastic neoclassic example. I haven't been inside but the outside is definitely impressive.  Martha Ingram, a lady who is richer than Oprah and apparently has very good taste was the primary donor and made a lot of the decisions on the design. This and the new Pinnacle tower acted together to expand downtown by a few blocks.  Previously Broadway was oddly both the downtown's main street and the edge of downtown.   

 

The library is on the site of a shopping mall called Church Street Center that used to connect to Castner Knott. It also connected to the hotel May Day stayed at. At that time it was a Stouffer's Hotel. The mall died in the mid-1990's. That's when they decided to build the library there. I am not sure if they tore down the mall, or if they "retrofitted" it to become the library. That might explain why the library isn't very attractive.

Is it just me, or does 5/3 try to build the ugliest building in the CBD?

 

 

 

"German Village" is everyday life in Cincy! lol

Is it just me, or does 5/3 try to build the ugliest building in the CBD?

 

IIRC 5/3 has a nice art deco tower in downtown Columbus.

The Fifth-Third building in Nashville was built as the Third National Financial Center.

^ Alright, buy/lease the ugliest buildings in the CBD. ;)

Nashville is a cute city, but seems to be a bit less authentic as it depends heavily on tourism and the music industry.