nashville

Lower Broad, Nashville

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Dawn on Lower Broad, Nashville

On a recent trip home to Nashville, we got up-and-out before dawn to cruise Nashville’s Lower Broad. I wanted to see the neon and what had become of my favorite old buildings along this four-block stretch that is the nation’s newest hotspot.

Lower Broadway honky tonk neon nashville TN
Looking down Lower Broad. Nashville, Tennessee.
Lower Broadway honky tonk neon nashville TN
The lights of Lower Broad. Nashville, Tennessee.

 

Hub of Nashville

This stretch of Broadway, down by the Cumberland River docks, used to be all about the business of living. Throughout the 1800s, grand bank buildings, hardware stores, grocers, clothing shops, and warehouses went up on Broadway to serve the boomtown. Ornate churches, Union Station, and Hume-Fogg High School came up too. And in the Great Depression, Federal assistance programs built the Post Office. For many years, Broadway was a hub of Nashville.

Acme Feed Seed Nashville TN
Riverfront warehouse, built in the late1880s, home to Acme Feed & Seed. Nashville, Tennessee. 
Old American National Bank building facade. Lower Broad. Nashville, Tenn.
Originally six stories, the American National Bank building (built in 1883) was demolished down to the facade in the 1970s. For years it was the Broadway Boot Company with a similar neon sign. Now it is the entry facade to a bar. Lower Broad. Nashville, Tennessee.

 

Then came music

The Grand Ole Opry moved into the Ryman Auditorium in 1943. The country music radio shows still broadcast nationwide every Friday and Saturday on WSM 650. Lower Broadway filled with honky tonks. Tootsies Orchid Lounge harbored country music legends who’d just finished performing at the Ryman and slipped through the alley into the bar’s backdoor for a night cap. Record stores, boot companies, sequined clothing shops, poster printers, restaurants, and tourist trinket shops popped up in Lower Broad’s empty warehouses and shuttered bank buildings. Music-star wannabes wandered over from the Greyhound station with their guitars to busk and be discovered along the busy Lower Broad sidewalks.

Painted Lawrence Record Shop mural sign. Nashville, TN
Lawrence Record Shop sign. Nashville, Tennessee.
Tootsies Orchid Lounge lower Broad Nashville, TN
Tootsies Orchid Lounge. Nashville, Tennessee.

 

Demise:  Abandoned to “Urban Renewal”

In 1974, the Grand Ole Opry moved out of the Ryman and Lower Broad began her descent. A fight raged over whether to demolish the Ryman Auditorium. Adult bookstores, smoke shops, and liquor stores filled the growing number of abandoned buildings. Lower Broad became a dirty, dangerous place to be. I remember riding with my grandfather to pick up my aunt from work at the South Central Bell building around the corner on Second Avenue. The area was creepy, dark and cave-like between the big buildings. We’d wait with the doors locked and the windows barely cracked. I wish now that I’d asked him about his memories of the area and made some photographs. It’s just vague memories now.

In the 1990s, Lower Broad began to turn around. People began to recognize the value of the area’s history. Some buildings were saved. Many were not…destroyed in fires or “urban renewal” projects. Here’s hoping their pre-country-music neon histories are remembered.

Shelby Street Bridge over the Cumberland Nashville TN
My hometown. Shelby Street Bridge over the Cumberland and the Nashville, Tennessee skyline, 2019. 

 

Thank you for reading

Select photos are available on Etsy.

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Carol Fletcher is a traveling, dog-loving, coffee-addicted, Nashville born-and-raised photographer living in Chicago. To see more photo essays and projects, please visit www.carolfletcher.com.

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It’s been a hard year.  We’ve lost a number of family members and dear friends.  Had job changes.  Experienced new aches and pains.  Dealt with little annoyances like losing an iPad and a coat (how does that happen??  Are our minds slipping?!)  And we’ve suffered through continuing bouts of ennui and this great restlessness.  A combination of things that leaves our hearts hurting, our thoughts scattered and worried, our confidence tested, and our energy exhausted.

We wonder, how many more Christmases will we have?  How many more summers?  How many more times will I get to hug this person–or hear that story again–or ask those questions?  How many more times can I say “next time, we’ll do that” –before there is no “next time”?  So, this Christmas, when I went home to Nashville to see my Mom and Dad, I also made plans to see some extended family–people I love, and used to spend more time with, but who I don’t have a lot of chances to see on quick visits home from Chicago.  It was good.  We shared laughter, stories, meals.  I need more of this.  And I have made a promise to myself to do more of it in 2015, and make it count.

I also spent a little time driving around Nashville…visiting some places I love…places that are scratched into my memory.  Former homes, old neighborhoods, favorite streets and parks.  Maybe I only spent a little time there–or maybe a lot.  But these places remain in my heart.  And while I can see them –any day– when I close my eyes, I wanted to touch them again.  It was good.  This too, I need more of.

Things change.  Buildings get knocked down.  Trees get cut down.  We change.  People move in and out of our lives.  It hurts sometimes.  And while we can’t always see them anymore, they live on in our memories.  And there is this magical kind of peace and grace in remembering those memories, and visiting those old places.

So, here’s to peace, and to a new year spent making good memories.  Happy New Year!

sledding hill
This is my old street and the neighborhood’s best sledding hill. When Nashville got snow, this hill was covered with kids and sleds. If you had good slick snow and a strong push off at the top of the hill, you could make it all the way to Valleywood.
Home
This place will always keep a few pieces of my heart.  My precious grandmother passed away there.  Three dogs are buried in the backyard, along with two pet turtles, three goldfish, and a few wild birds.  Those two strong maples were plucked from the woods by my father and grandfather–planted in the little front yard of our other house and then moved to this yard as saplings.
Shelby Avenue old tree and old house
Roots and foundations on Shelby Avenue.
Pond by the Parthenon
Gone are the paddle boats and swans:  The Parthenon’s pond in Centennial Park
Centennial Park Swing
Centennial Park Swings:  These are the best swings in the world. It’s all in the footboard…
Elliston Place Restaurant Diner
Neon sign from the old fashioned soda shop on Elliston Place. Milkshakes and grilled cheese…yum.
Exit/In wild posting by Krispy Kreme
Exit/In brought the music to the locals. And in a town like Nashville–“special guests” could mean a Rolling Stone, a Beatle or Johnny Cash.
Train tracks over the Cumberland
My grandparents had tomato plants…lots of tomato plants in their tiny backyard. One summer, they came to this spot in Shelby Park every day to dig dirt–buckets of good dark river dirt.  We’d go home each day with 4-5 big buckets of Shelby Park dirt for those tomato plants in the trunk of their car.
Long Avenue dead ends into Shelby Park
I once flew in a red wagon down Long Avenue’s alley hill into Shelby Park–zooming with more speed than control–with my laughing and elderly Aunt Tiller.  “Don’t you take that baby down that hill Tiller!”, my grandmother yelled from the kitchen window.  “Wave at her,” my Aunt Tiller whispered in my ear as she kicked the wagon into motion.
Spring Hill Cemetery
One of the most peaceful places I know. The tree in Spring Hill beneath which my grandparents rest.
Fletcher's Shoes
Daddy’s shoe shop, closing early on a rainy Christmas Eve’s Eve:  No matter where I am, I think of him whenever I smell shoe leather—or wear my Converse with no arch support.
Sage dressing
“More sage!”:  says my step-dad Marvin every time we test Mama’s homemade dressing.
Christmas Eve
Bill Monroe sings, “Christmastime’s a comin’, and I know I’m going home”:  There is a special comfort in being at Mama’s house on Christmas Eve. The smell of dressing and vegetables cooking, the lights on the tree twinkling on the bows & ribbons below, and you know that after eating, you’ll sit in that room chattering for a few welcome hours.
Awaiting the holiday meal
Anticipation:  Setting the table with the holiday china and Mama’s place cards for the Christmas Eve feast.
kitchen bar with christmas tree and microwave
Later at Daddy’s house:  We sit at the kitchen bar and talk about old family photos, health, and those little Christmas trees Aunt Robbie made all those years ago.