Old Nashville Treasures

[Baronakim]

Nashville has many areas which are steeped in history.  This new topic is a place to focus on the places we Nashvillians  have loved for all our lives in  our memories and our photos..  One very dear place in downtown Nashville is the Arcade which opened to the public in 1903.

The Nashville Arcade

The city alley between 4th and 5th Avenues North in the late 19th century known  as Overton Alley was a downtown rose garden. Inspired by the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II Arcade in Milan, Italy , construction began in 1902 for the one of the earliest covered shopping malls in North America.   The Nashville architectural firm  of Thompson, Gibel, and Asmus  designed the two-story arcade with entrances  at 4th and 5th Avenues North,with identical   Palladian facades.  The new Arcade was two stories high with a gabled  gabled glass roof installed by the Nashville Bridge Company,; the contractor was  the Edgefield and Nashville Manufacturing Company; the developer was Daniel Franklin Carter Buntin .    On the first level were a variety of shops and art galleries, a mezzanine housed professional offices.   At its opening, the Arcade was crowded with over 40,000 attendees which was quite impressive as the entire Davidson County population at the time was only 125,000.  Running across the Arcade was another famous Nashville place, Printer's Alley which will be featured in a later post.  As a child, my grandfather often took me to the Arcade to buy hot cashew nuts and peanuts from the old shop at the Printer's Alley crossing. Back in the 50s, a man in a Mr. Peanut costume roamed the Arcade giving out samples.  For a 9 year old boy this was one of the best places in downtown...except maybe Candyland at 6th and Church!   By the 1980s, many of the stores and offices were vacant and the Arcade was in danger of closing but there was sufficient public input, largely through nostalgia for the venerable mall, that it was given a complete renovation.  Today it again houses shops and galleries that generate much the same excitement for visitors as it did over a century earlier.

Photos:   1. Arcade 1903    2. Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II Arcade in Milan, Italy  3.  Arcade 1917  4. Street Entrance to Arcade  4-7. Views  1920s-60s   8. 1970  9. The peanut store at Printer's Alley walkthrough   10. Aerial 1950s.  11 Aerial 1960s   12. Arcade today

Edited November 12, 2019 by Baronakim
added photo

[bnacincy]

I like the little neon signs they had hanging out in front of the shops-the Arcade looks a little barren without them.

Great work Baronakim....keep it comin'.

[chris holman]

Maxwell House 

[Jamie Hall]

I took an out-of-town guest to Woolworth's on Fifth for lunch a few weeks ago, and we cut through The Arcade to get back to our parking garage. He had a lot of comments about how cool The Arcade was and how it's such an interesting feature for a downtown area.

I (unfortunately) often forget that we have it in our own city, but I have a hunch that it's often overlooked because of the way it blends into the streetscape, which is a shame.

Edited November 11, 2019 by Jamie Hall

[chris holman]

Nashville 1940 Street Car

[erdichia]

16 minutes ago, chris holman said:

Nashville 1940 Street Car

Too bad the city didn’t keep those. Would have saved us billions now...

[MLBrumby]

15 minutes ago, chris holman said:

Maxwell House 

Wow!  I love this!  I guess you're S.O.L. if you want Kentucky Opossum (note the proper spelling befitting a classy joint)... or a Tennessee 'coon (what's that all about?).  And does anyone know what Black Bear tastes like? Any different from Grizzly? Or Kodiak?  And w.t.f. is "Poivrede"?  Because it's French? And how much is a "Saddle"? I'm a self-styled gourmet, and I absolutely love looking at old menus. They truly are a window into a different time. 

[titanhog]

25 minutes ago, MLBrumby said:

Wow!  I love this!  I guess you're S.O.L. if you want Kentucky Opossum (note the proper spelling befitting a classy joint)... or a Tennessee 'coon (what's that all about?).  And does anyone know what Black Bear tastes like? Any different from Grizzly? Or Kodiak?  And w.t.f. is "Poivrede"?  Because it's French? And how much is a "Saddle"? I'm a self-styled gourmet, and I absolutely love looking at old menus. They truly are a window into a different time. 

Wow!  That's an exotic menu (for these times).  I ate some wild meat up in the Canadian Rockies (if I remember correctly...bear, moose, caribou (maybe), etc).  Can't imagine eating possum. 

[Baronakim]

56 minutes ago, MLBrumby said:

Wow!  I love this!  I guess you're S.O.L. if you want Kentucky Opossum (note the proper spelling befitting a classy joint)... or a Tennessee 'coon (what's that all about?).  And does anyone know what Black Bear tastes like? Any different from Grizzly? Or Kodiak?  And w.t.f. is "Poivrede"?  Because it's French? And how much is a "Saddle"? I'm a self-styled gourmet, and I absolutely love looking at old menus. They truly are a window into a different time. 

A saddle is a double loin, rolled and tied and wrapped in fat, then cooked like a roast.  Size varies with the animal species and age.   I don't know the point of origin, but you might try this possum.  Bear is greasy and not my favorite, roast coon is much better, like pork.  Both of them you have to trim off every trace of fat as it is nasty tasting.  You lard them with bacon.   Fried snake and squirrel is mighty fine too.   A polvrede is a dish with a peppery sauce.

Edited November 11, 2019 by Baronakim
spelling and grammar corrections

[smeagolsfree]

Animal rights folks would have had a field day with that menu today.

[chris holman]

Cain-Sloan Co.'s Church Street store
was built in 1957, across the street from
the original location, after the firm was
purchased by Allied Stores in 1956.

Church St. was three lanes. I think I remember that 

[LA_TN]

4 minutes ago, chris holman said:

Church St. was three lanes. I think I remember that 

I'm gonna say around 2005ish is when it was changed to a two-way street 

[Baronakim]

PRINTERS ALLEY

Originally the center of the city’s printing industry,  first established in the 1830s and  thriving by the end of the Civil War, Printer's Alley was home to thirteen publishers and printers, including early offices of the the Nashville Banner and The Tennessean.  Down toward the river, Third Avenue (then College Street) was home to eight retail furniture stores.    Cherry Street (now Fourth Avenue) was lined with saloons, billiard halls, barber shops,  bath houses,  restaurants and tobacconists.   Cherry Street and the Alley behind it (now Printer's Alley), was known in the late nineteenth century as the Men’s Quarter as many gambling parlors and saloons were located here. No respectable woman dared venture into this area if she valued her reputation. The Maxwell House Hotel,  which had its main entrance across on Cherry Street,  provided a separate ladies’ entrance around the corner on Church Street, such was the notorious reputation of the Men's Quarter.  Two Men’s Quarter saloon buildings survive on Fourth Avenue today, the Climax at 210 Fourth Avenue North (now part of the Dream Hotel) and the Southern Turf building at 212 Fourth Avenue North. 

With the enactment of Prohibition in 1909 , many businesses failed,  some then businesses closed, but speakeasies continued to illegally operate new jazz clubs and bars until the repeal of prohibition on December 5, 1933.  Bounded by Union Street to the north, Third Avenue to the east, Church Street to the south, and Fourth Avenue to the west, the Printer’s Alley Historic District encompasses fifteen commercial structures dating from 1874 to 1929.  These are, in order of construction, Utopia Hotel (1891), Climax Saloon (1887), Southern Turf Saloon (1895), Ambrose Building (formerly Bruce Building, 1905), and Noel Block Garage (1926)and the U.S. Bank Building (1929) .  Architectural styles of these buildings include Italianate, Romanesque Revival, Victorian Romanesque, Queen Anne, neoclassical, and Art Deco.   Many cafes, saloons, gambling halls, speakeasies and clubs—including the famed Climax Club—sprang up to cater to the men of Nashville’s print shops as well as to judges, lawyers, politicians and other members of the city’s elite.

Printer's Alley is  narrow and lined with brick facades, cast-iron balconies, and foliage overhanging from window boxes. Many of neon signboards  date to the 1940s.   Recent attempts to revitalize the district have led to an influx of luxury hotels and other high-end services.  Printer’s Alley was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1977.  Printer's Alley the notorious alley in downtown Nashville, Tennessee, between Third and Fourth Avenues, runs from Union Street to Commerce Street.  The portion of the alley between Union and Church Street is the home of a nightclub district that dates back from the 1940s.

It didn’t matter what you were looking for, you could find it in Printer’s Alley (Nashville’s dirty little secret). The city’s politicians and police protected the Alley even after the sale of liquor was outlawed in 1909. Hilary Howse, Nashville’s mayor at the time was asked by reporters if he protected the Alley’s establishments. “Protect them?” he answered. “ I do better than that, I patronize them.”

In the 1940s, when  Printer's Alley first became well known for its nightclubs and entertainment venues, sale of liquor in businesses for on site consumption was illegal in Nashville (and the state of  Tennessee).  Restaurants and clubs in Printer's  Alley served liquor regardless, claiming it had been "brown bagged" by its patrons.  More prominent patrons commonly  kept their bottles in lockers or on shelves behind their favorite bar for safekeeping.  It was generally understood that the police would "look the other way" and the Alley became infamous, even internationally so.   Liquor by-the-drink  was legalized in  restaurants by the new Metropolitan government in 1968.

Famed  Printer's Alley clubs included Jimmy Hyde's Carousel Club, a jazz venue, the Voodoo Room, Skull's Rainbow Room and the Black Poodle Lounge...all frequented by artists like  Chet Atkins, Floyd Cramer, Boots Randolph, Bob Moore, Brenton Banks, Buddy Harman and Hank Garland.  Boots Randolph later  purchased the Carousel.   In 1998, club proprietor David "Skull" Schulman was tragically murdered while walking his beloved dogs by a robber, shortly before his club was due to open.   The last printer to leave the Alley was Ambrose Printing Company in 1977.
Printer's  Alley was  added to the National Register of Historic Places as a historic district in 1982.

In the 40s and 50s, entertainers such as Waylon Jennings, Hank Williams and Dottie West could be found performing in the Alley. In the 1970s, superstars Paul McCartney,  the Supremes, Hank Williams, Barbara Mandrell and Jimi Hendrix performed on the small stages of the Alley's clubs.  In present day Nashville, the printers are long gone, but the ambiance, the flair and the long history of the Alley remains.

 

 

Edited November 12, 2019 by Baronakim
spelling and grammar

[jmtunafish]

3 hours ago, MLBrumby said:

Wow!  I love this!  I guess you're S.O.L. if you want Kentucky Opossum (note the proper spelling befitting a classy joint)... or a Tennessee 'coon (what's that all about?).  And does anyone know what Black Bear tastes like? Any different from Grizzly? Or Kodiak?  And w.t.f. is "Poivrede"?  Because it's French? And how much is a "Saddle"? I'm a self-styled gourmet, and I absolutely love looking at old menus. They truly are a window into a different time. 

 

2 hours ago, Baronakim said:

A saddle is a double loin, rolled and tied and wrapped in fat, then cooked like a roast.  Size varies with the animal species and age.   I don't know the point of origin, but you might try this possum.  Bear is greasy and not my favorite, roast coon is much better, like pork.  Both of them you have to trim off every trace of fat as it is nasty tasting.  You lard them with bacon.   Fried snake and squirrel is mighty fine too.   A polvrede is a dish with a peppery sauce.

Just to clarify, it's poivrade ("pwah-vrahd").  It's a red wine sauce with herbs and a whole lot of freshly ground black peppercorn.  It's wonderful on steak.  I can't imagine what it would be like on bear.  Anyway, that is an impressive menu for a Christmas dinner.  I wish someone with a lot of money could rebuild the old Maxwell House Hotel in downtown.  I guess it was similar to the Hermitage Hotel in opulence?  

[chris holman]

Nashville's $5 million Municipal Auditorium begins to take shape May 15, 1961, as construction workers strive to make up days lost during winter weather. The auditorium, which will seat 10,800, is scheduled for completion in July 1962.  
 

[Nashvillain]

14 hours ago, Jamie Hall said:

I took an out-of-town guest to Woolworth's on Fifth for lunch a few weeks ago, and we cut through The Arcade to get back to our parking garage. He had a lot of comments about how cool The Arcade was and how it's such an interesting feature for a downtown area.

I (unfortunately) often forget that we have it in our own city, but I have a hunch that it's often overlooked because of the way it blends into the streetscape, which is a shame.

In the middle of the day it's pretty jam packed so, luckily, it's not too hidden. I hope it stays the way it is rather than becoming honky tonk bedonkidonked.

[Baronakim]

NASHVILLE'S VANISHED  DOWNTOWN THEATRES

Because movie theatres only had one screen when I was a kid, if you wanted mom and dad to take you to a movie you were aching to see, the first thing you did was look in the newspaper to see which theater was showing it and when.  I know this probably sounds  odd to all the younger folks , but if  theatres back then were going to show more than one film on a specific day, they scheduled them since they only had the single auditorium.  As a result, most of us old coots got to visit most if not all of Nashville's downtown theatres...it was also a good excuse for mom to go shopping while dad was at work.  Most of these grand old venues were on Church Street or a block or so north of it.  Here is a summary of those we loved and lost years ago.

Before the rise of film in the early 20th century, Nashville, like other cities of its size, had a plethora of vaudeville and performance halls both for the white and black communities.  Early film theatres were the same halls with the addition of a screen and projector...of course there was no sound other than that of piano and live musicians as they always had in vaudeville.  I have not seen much in the way of documentation of these.  

On Fifth Avenue N., between the Arcade and Church Street and across from the 5 &10 cent store, were two early Nashville theatres. The Rex Theatre was opened prior to 1914.   By 1950 it was operated by the Crescent Amusement Co. and closed  by 1957. The present 30 story  Fifth Third Center was built on the site in 1986 but then was the 3rd National Bank Building.  The other was the Fifth Avenue Theatre at 218 Fifth Avenue N.   The Fifth Avenue opened December 26, 1909.  In 1950, the Crescent Amusement Co. took over operation and it finally closed in July of 1960.  Of these two theatres, I have few personal memories other than passing them on the street.

The old Princess Theatre at 511 Church Street was built  as a vaudeville theater in 1917 that eventually changed over in the 1930’s to run movies exclusively.  The Princess was  part of the Crescent Theatre chain. The Cain-Sloan department store across Church Street acquired the closed property in 1951.  A new Princess Theatre was built and reopened at 415 Church Street in 1949   In 1959, the Princess was remodeled for the then more modern technology and was renamed the Crescent,  equipped with a 45-foot screen and stereophonic sound  and 70mm projection.  Reopening on Christmas Day 1959, it featured with an extended run of The Big Fisherman, followed by other long-runs in 1960 including Ben Hur and Spartacus.   It was renamed again as the Crescent Cinerama  with three panel Cinerama  and 70mm Cinerama  in 1964 with It’a A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, which I eagerly attended.   Later in the 60s, it became part of the Loews Chain  and the name Loews  Crescent Cinerama was shortened to just the Loews.  It was the last downtown theatre to close and the Loews was demolished in 1994 for the Viridian.

Of Nashville's downtown theaters, the first to be built originally as a film theatre was the Knickerbocker Theatre,  between Capitol Blvd and 6th Ave N.,   “William H. Wassman’s latest addition to the motion picture world, opened in downtown Nashville.” on March 22, 1916.   Oddly,  the  Knickerbocker Theatre had two entrances and box offices, one at 210 Capitol Blvd and another at 205 6th Avenue North.   Painted ivory, green, and gold it was  claimed to be "altogether one of the handsomest establishments in the country.”  The Knickerbocker had a $15,000 symphony organ and  two Edison Super-Kinetoscopes. The opening feature film was Bessie Barriscale in “Bullets and Brown Eyes.”  Nashville artist Otto Hylen designed elaborate  birds-of-paradise frescoes for the auditorium walls.  When I was a teenager, the Knickerbocker had ceased showing first run movies and showed  B- rated classic horror movies as the H-Man and Frankenstein's Daughter.  It closed in 1962 and was demolished for a parking garage in 1990.

Another theatre of the same vintage was the Strand on 4th Avenue N., whether this was a conversion or a new theater building I have not been able to determine.  It ran films throughout the 20s and into the 30s.  As this was in the Men's Quarter's District,  the stage (yes most theatres had stages) so there was most likely live vaudeville performance as well.  I rather doubt this theatre lasted into the era of sound for films.

The Crescent Amusement Company, one of the bigger theatre companies of the time,  opened The Capitol Theatre  on April 19, 1926 with Richard Dix in “Let’s Get Married” plus vaudeville acts.  It burned in 1929, one of the hazards with the highly combustible film of the times.  It was located at the corner of Church Street and 6th Avenue N. where the  11 story art deco  Warner Building was erected.

Loews Vendome at 615 Church Street originally  was an opera house which opened on October 3, 1887. with two balconies and sixteen boxes.  Loew's took over the hall in the mid-1920'sand had both Vaudeville acts and silent movies.  In the evening of August 8, 1967, the theatre caught fire and the grand auditorium was heavily damaged.  The  surviving lobby space was leased as retail space until 1986 when it was finally demolished.  The 1967 fire was not the first fire at the Loew’s Vendome, a previous fire occurred on January 2, 1902, caused by faulty electrical wiring in the upper boxes. Damages were between $35,000-$50,000.00, a huge sum in 1902. Repaired and remodeled Loews Vendome reopened on September 12th, 1902. The sixteen boxes were refinished in ivory and gold, the walls were painted with a red tint shading from pale rose to terra cotta.  The vaudeville theater had a new ceiling mural, entitled “Love’s Awakening”, replaced “Aurora” destroyed by the fire.  It reopened as a motion picture theatre on April 14th, 1915 (Banner).  it was again remodeled  and opened opened on March 22, 1920 (Tennessean) after a $100,000.00 upgrade for movie showing., though Vaudeville acts were still performed before the movies.  accompanied by a new $20,000 organ.

Nashville's downtown theatres had  terrific ambiance, especially the Paramount, which opened  as a movie only theater on November 14, 1930 at 727 Church Street.     The Paramount had a grand three-manual console Wurlitzer organ that rose out of the floor  on hydraulic lifts. A lighting show before the features show ran through a sequence of the night skies to sunrise while the organist played grand music and you could follow a bouncing ball on lyrics on-screen to sing along, while waiting for the show.  A very unusual architectural feature in entering the theatre was that you entered at the level of the balcony on Church street due to the steep slope down to Commerce Street.  Another point about these theatres in the 40s and 50s was that they had uniformed ushers to guide you to your seat.  A lot of Nashville male teens earned extra money ushering or passing out handbills to passersby on Church Street promoting the current movie.  It was sold to the Martin Theatre Chain in 1978 which operated it until it was demolished in the 80s.

Built into the Warner Building's  (1932) first floor at 533 Church Street was the largest and most modern downtown theatre, the Tennessee, which opened in 1952.  The lobby was spacious and was designed in the height of 1950s Streamline Modern style.  A very grand stair went up to the  large balcony.  The total seating capacity was 2,028, the largest downtown theatre.  It holds a distinction in 1973 of hosting the only Grammy awards ceremony outside of Los Angeles or New York City.  It was demolished in the 1980s to build the soviet style Cumberland Apartments.

Sadly all of these grand venues  succumbed to the convenience of the Nashville suburban theatres which I will cover in another post.  However, in the suburbs was another class of movie showing,  the drive-in's like Warner Park, Bel-Aire, the Skyway, Colonial, Crescent or Montague. Of course these were open mainly in warm weather, but  I remember watching shows on chilly Fall evenings as the parking spaces had heater units as well as speakers for your car.  All in all, the movie experience was vastly different from the present multi-plex cinemas which we have now. 

 

Edited November 14, 2019 by Baronakim
punctuation errors

[MidTenn1]

42 minutes ago, Baronakim said:

 

Funny that this picture is shown. Fred Cobb, a police officer, went to see this show and afterwards he had it shut down for profanity. It made national news, but was reopened soon after. Cobb was a friend of my Dad's (everyone went to East High back in the day).

I went to most of the Movie theaters downtown, but my favorite memory was eating chili at Varallo's and going to the Crescent to watch 'The Time Machine"

[CenterHill]

2 hours ago, Baronakim said:

NASHVILLE'S VANISHED  DOWNTOWN THEATRES

Thanks for the excellent summary, @Baronakim      Nashville has lost so many significant buildings over the years, many to fires, some to neglect and many to new development.    I still think one of the most senseless losses was the art deco style Sudekum building and Tennessee theater.    I was newly arrived and working in Nashville when it came down and I remember watching its sad fate.   To this day, I imagine what this part of downtown would feel like if it were still standing there today, restored and converted to apartments or mixed use, with its shiny vertical "fins" and unique rooftop ornamentation.     All the more painful given what replaced it (I chuckled at your "Soviet style" dig).     

[MLBrumby]

I think the destruction of the Tennessee Theatre will be Tony Giarratana's legacy over the construction of cheap schlocky tenement houses. 

[chris holman]

This was a “hardtop” theatre designed by famed theatre architect John Eberson in an Art Deco style. It is mentioned in passing in Ben Hall’s book “The Best Remaining Seats”. The Paramount Theatre opened on November 14, 1930. My mother remembers the organ was still in use during World War II when she was going to the movies. By 1950 the Paramount Theatre was operated by Crescent Amusement Co. It was still open in 1957.

Nashville had several big movie palaces downtown, three on Church Street. All have been razed. The site of the Paramount Theatre became a parking lot. In 2019 a courthouse was being constructed on the site.

[markhollin]

Another note about the Knickerbocker Theater: You can still see evidence of it today if you go to the narrow parking lot between 6th and 7th Avenues North, 1/4 block north of Church Street.  That is the exact footprint of the theater, and along the northern and southern walls on each side you can see markings where the balcony hugged those walls.

Some more visuals of The Vendome Theater (circa 1887):



 

[Jamie Hall]

Those are such amazing images of a classic time for Nashville. When theater chains build modern downtown/urban theaters, has there been any instance in which they've incorporated some of the old-style decor or architecture as an homage to classic downtown theaters? Just wondering if there's a chance that the new movie theater being built as part of Nashville Yards might take that approach.

[bnacincy]

If I had a billion dollars I would buy that property where The Tennessee Theater/Sudekum building stood and rebuild both exactly to spec.

And then I would buy the Maxwell House and move it back to 4th and Church in a classic art deco building with a Maxwell House Cafe.

And then I would rebuild the warehouses between 2nd and Church and Bank Street that burned down in the 80's and put the Gerst Haus in one of them.

And then I would reopen the Voodoo Room, The Carousel Club and the Peppermint Lounge in Printers Alley.

And then, and then.......OK, you get the picture.

Now, who's with me?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited November 13, 2019 by bnacincy
content

[MLBrumby]

Gonna throw this one out there b/c I NEVER see/hear anything about this one. I dated a girl whose parents lived here in the late 1980s and I remember thinking how unique it was (and Wessex Towers). But I've always liked the irregular windows on its facade. And it's all brick. I recall walking into the lobby and thinking how cool the brick was.  Anyway, I 'give' you.... Rokeby (which BTW was the name of the plantation where Adelicia Acklen lived in the mid-1850s. 

Rokeby Condominiums 

Designed by Barber McMurry....https://bma1915.com/ 

The 12-story Rokeby Condominiums tower opened to acclaim when it was completed in 1976, and today is still considered one of its most prestigious residential developments. 

The building has been selected as one of the city’s most notable landmarks.

BarberMcMurry's flexible design allowed the developer to market the widest possible range of condominium unit sizes. Amenities include fireplaces, swimming pool, sundecks, tea room, secured garage parking, and extensive landscaping. The Rokeby provides its residents and visitors a functional and attractive facility which provides the convenience of more expensive condominiums.