Nashville: A year or so ago....

[it's just dave]

I've been looking through lots of old pictures and am amazed at how quickly the city has changed/is changing. Just over the past year or even past few months, the landscape is a blend of the new and the familiar. I'd like to do and extensive retrospect, but can't right now, but here's a few shots that are unbelieveably recent, but incredibly obsolete already. This could be fun. Hope you want to see some more ... when I get to it.

The old BellSouth building in the Gulch whee ICON is rising.

Gateway Blvd. and we were afraid it was always going to be.

Someone asked the other day about the old lodge. We'll here it is...or, was.

The West End Apts. as we all knew it before the new tower.

This one makes me sad.

Gulch underway

Viridian? What Viridian?

Courthouse plaza before the Plaza

Nashville's solid foundation

[nashvillwill]

nice shots Dave, thanks for the nostalgia.

[Nashvillain]

Man, Nashville was such a dump two years ago. How did anyone even live here? Ha, ha. It's great to see the "progress" that's been made in such a short time, as well as some of the good things that have been lost to make way for mythical projects. All in all, I'd say the downtown area has improved greatly with the renovation to Church Street, the Courthouse Plaza, Gateway Boulevard which provides the impetus and infrastructure to propel growth in SoBro for a long time to come. Once some of these residential projects come online, Icon and Encore particularly, it will be amazing to see the downtown area full of people all times of day, people walking around doing things and not just a mass of automobiles rumbling around past empty sidewalks and parking lots.

[frankliner]

I definitely think we should use that "solid foundation" picture in our future marketing for business recruitment or even tourism development. It'd make for some good one-liners to hook em .

[ATLBrain]

Dave, and others, please make sure you get a shot of the James Robertson Apts... I fear it's days are numbered. If NSH doesn't watch out, it will soon get a sterile look DT with nothing but shiny new high rises and nothing of character filled in between them. I know of a few cities that are already there.

I wonder if Doormanpoet has any scuttlebutt on JR apts. He works right next door.

[MidTenn1]

A little more than a year ago, but the Church Street rehab is fairly recent..

[Hankster]

Great work, Dave! These pictures really do drive home the fact that a lot of really positive change has taken place in such a short time. And, we have lots more to look forward to. If anything, the rate of change and positive development is accelerating.

Thanks PH, too. The Church Street project has turned out great, IMO.

[nashvillwill]

I sure do miss the brick on Church St.

[satalac]

yeah dave, i miss houstons too. i haven't been to bricktop's yet, but i just don't see it filling in the void left.

[Lexy]

Oh man, this may be thread of the year material here Dave!! Excellent post!

[nashscan]

I would LOVE to see pictures of Nashville 5, 10, and 20 years ago! Also from the year I was born in 1980 as well. If anyone can contribute, please do so! Thanks for posting Dave.

[ATLBrain]

There was a small video clip that lasted apx. 1 minute that somebody posted on this board several months ago (May??). It was a commercial for Channel 4 that showed several video shots of downtown and a view from West End. It was from 1986. I thought it was quite stunning how small the DT was.

[it's just dave]

I was cleaning out a sideboard in my dining room this morning and came across several newspapers dating back to 1964, 65, 69 and so on.

There was a section in a Sunday paper that had some early renderings of the "new" Opry House that was to be built. There was also a good bit of the articles talking about this "themepark" idea they had with actual pencil sketch drawings of some of the areas that actually became Opryland a few years later. Fascinating.

Damn near as fascinating as new Pontiacs for $2800, eggs 2 doz or 88 cents. What were very expensive for the day were clock radios (almost $30) and console tvs for 500 and up. The long models with stereos were over $1000. Talk about big bucks for entertainment.

The was one more published in 1965 that had a rendering of the Nashville of the Future. I believe the paper was from 1964. There was the L&C in all its glory, but surprisingly it was one of only a handful of highrises. The SoBro and Riverfront areas were all mid-rises facing nice, wide boulevards. I'll try to remember to take this to work and scan it. Pretty cool stuff.

Oh yeah, another thing. The ads for land in Williamson County...omg. If we'd only known. One advertised 150 acres "on the main highway".....for $11,000. I haven't gotten the knot out of stomach yet. That makes me almost as ill as the fact that my grandfather owned 1200 acres of land south of here that he just forgot to pay taxes on. The land was lost. It became that little Air Force deal in Tullahoma. Crapalooza! And then the 120 acres an old lady friend of his wanted to GIVE him in Pennington Bend. he didn't want it, he just thought it would flood. Oh my, oh mercy me. What could have been.....sigh.

I'm just ramblin today...sorry.

[BrandonTO416]

Dave, the future can't be told. No one knew a small rural county south of Nashville would become the suburban wonderland for those with higher income. Success happens by chance to a great extent.

[MidTenn1]

If you really crave Nashville nostalgia, this is the link.

I worked at Harvey's Department Store in 1967, so I well remember Max Lowenstein (the death camp survivor) and Cortella Clark (the blind, Grammy winning, guitar playing beggar) very well.

More on Clark here.

What remarkable people, they were.

[satalac]

I worked at Harvey's Department Store in 1967, so I well remember Max Lowenstein (the death camp survivor) and Cortella Clark (the blind, Grammy winning, guitar playing beggar) very well.

More on Clark here.

What remarkable people, they were.

[MidTenn1]

is the statue on union and 5th clark? awesome links too! i wished that i could have been in nashville in the 50s and 60s. it seemed to be a bustling area.