North End elementary school to celebrate 80th anniversary next week

From the Buena Vista Enhanced Option Elementary School website:

Buena Vista Enhanced Option School will be celebrating its 80th year of serving Nashville’s best and brightest children. Buena Vista has a rich history in the North Nashville Community. We are inviting former students of Buena Vista to come out and help us celebrate this event. On Friday, October 28, 2011, there will be an 80th Anniversary Celebration Reception from 2:00-5:00 P.M. and the Adult Alumni Mixer is 6:00-8:00 P.M. The events will be held at Buena Vista. Light refreshments will be served along with entertainment during the mixer. Donations will be accepted and all proceeds will benefit purchasing stage curtains and playground equipment. There will also be a Giving Tree permanently displayed with contributor’s names listed as bronze ($50), silver ($100), gold ($250) and platinum ($500) leaves. Donations are tax deductible and checks need to made payable to BVEOS. If there are any questions, please contact Buena Vista at 615-291-6762.

I felt strongly enough about Buena Vista's status as one of our community institutions to donate to the cause. 80 years is a long time. They also started a Facebook page for the event.

Buena Vista School has three years to fail

I'm not going to neighborhood association meetings due to a previous Executive Committee ambush. But the wife attended tonight. When she returned she conveyed news dropped there that Metro's Buena Vista School, a few blocks over from us, has 3 years to improve or it will be flipped charter.

My prediction: 97% African American/97% reduced lunch Buena Vista will be allowed to fail in the next three years. Then it will be flipped to a charter school (which can weed out and turn away students) more palatable to the nervous hipster parents gentrifying the area. Otherwise, nothing about a system in our community that creates a permanent, poorly educated underclass will change.

Look, MNPS has been criticized for its partnering with the Chamber of Commerce to exercise school reform as vocational training:

in recent years, some have questioned Metro’s commitment to intellectual rigor, particularly in criticizing The Academies of Nashville — the chamber of commerce-supported high-school model that bridges coursework with career-oriented themes through private business partnerships. Skeptics have labeled the program “vocational education.”

A charter school at Buena Vista will only be window dressing to attract the predominately white voting bloc at the Nashville Urban School Coalition. Otherwise, it will be as effective as vocational education. In the context of North Nashville's unequal access to education, "choice" will not amount to much more than paper or plastic (to paraphrase George Carlin).

MNPS is set up to fail North Nashville. A truly public school at Buena Vista will be the casualty. Mark my words.

Buena Vista Elementary defended at Salemtown Association meeting

Last Monday night during a neighborhood association discussion with Buena Vista Enhanced Option School leaders, the subject of the rather one-sided 2011 Tennessean article in which predominately white North End parents objected and balked came up. One Salemtown resident who volunteers weekly at Buena Vista bristled at claims that the kids who go there--predominantly poor and African-American--could not perform or behave.

The side I heard on Monday that did not get reported last summer by Nancy DeVille was that the Buena Vista students are well-behaved, enthusiastic and eager to learn in spite of the absence of advantages and resources that children in wealthier parts of Nashville enjoy.

I'm looking forward to us continuing to build a strong partnership with Buena Vista in order to continue to help bring it up where it belongs rather than bailing on it.

One Of Our Neighborhood Schools A Target For Closure, Updated

Unlike suburban public schools, schools close to the center city often act as one of a few anchors for the walkable neighborhood. When they are good, they are one of the few institutions that actually attract families, rather than upwardly mobile singles or older adults, back to urban neighborhoods, because families with kids require good schools. That is why predominantly suburban resistance to raising taxes for funding schools among other urban services is a direct attack not only on education, but it is also an assault through neglect on the fabric of urban neighborhoods, which lose their centers and which have a harder time attracting the families that would diversify their populations.

While I did not support the last sales tax referendum to fund education, I do believe in both the need for progressive revenue-raising for city schools and reform of the system to stop waste and create cost-effective educational measures. When educational reform gets overemphasized to the exclusion of the need for more money to pay for rising costs, increasing student populations, technology upgrades, and court-mandated revenue sharing with rural schools, I interpret mutual exclusion as a war declared on urbanism as a way of life. I interpret it as animosity toward a walkable and diverse neighborhood where gasoline expenses are minimal. I consider it protection of the monopoly that suburban areas have over attracting families.

I wondered this past weekend whether one of the casualties of the Metro School Board's tough decisions would be a North End institution: Buena Vista School. Reading the cut list, I was relieved to see that Buena Vista seems to have survived so far. However, I was horrified to see that another historic North End institution, Jones Paideia Magnet School, is slated to be closed and their students moved several blocks deeper into Metro Center to the John Early Paideia School. While only a few blocks over, Jones Paideia is changing neighborhoods: from Jones-Buena Vista to Historic Buena Vista. So, one of the centers of the Jones-Buena Vista neighborhood, currently closed for renovation, is a casualty to the lack of political will to pay for services; if Pedro Garcia has his way, it will not re-open next fall.

I know we don't live in a perfect world and Garcia and the School Board are left with tough decisions, mainly due to the Metro Council and the Mayor's gamble on a sales tax increase. But I hope that North End residents fight to keep Jones Paideia open or at least to get promises that it will open again some day when our budget is more progressive.

It would be totally wrong to either tear the school down or to sell it to private developers or to put more public assistance offices or Head Start facilities in it to go with those already disproportionately occupying so many of our city neighborhoods.

Jones School is one of the architectural jewels of the North End. The Paideia program, based on teaching children classic Socratic critical thinking, provides an great alternative to traditional public school methods. But most importantly, this is one of our centers that gives neighbors, black and white together, a sense of place, turning them toward their own neighborhood.

11/10/2005, 10:30 p.m. Update: The 10:00 p.m. news programs on each of the local stations reported tonight about "frustrated" parents speaking out at tonight's School Board Public Meeting at Maplewood High School. Channel 4 News reported that one of the most controversial proposed closings was Jones Paideia. They reported that part of the problem was the perception that there were discipline problems at John Early Paideia that would be amplified by increasing the school's population. News 2 presented comments against closing by a Rose Park Student. NewsChannel 5 said very little in detail about the meeting, and merely quoted a principal who supported the closings (typical!).

In the interest of full disclosure

Several years ago Hope Gardens association president Jason Powell contacted North End community leaders to bring together "champions" whom he said could give life to a plan for a new ballpark in the North Capitol area. The "champions" never really materialized as a bona fide grassroots movement here. The "champions'" Facebook page lay dormant for 2 years before cranking up again with the Mayor's formal announcement several weeks ago. Now, as a prominent Democrat and State Representative from south Davidson County's 53rd District (but still a cheerleader without a grassroots ballpark movement), he celebrates news of the Mayor's Sulphur Dell announcement:

It may very well be a big fly for local property owners, especially since the news media is passing around projections that land values here will soar:

The impact a new ballpark could have on that area will be similar... [to] the ripple effect Music City Center had on SoBro, where property values have in some cases tripled in recent years.

If the project becomes official, look for property values to initially jump around 15 percent, [real estate broker Grant] Hammond said. Once construction is underway, Hammond expects prices to climb again, about 25 percent higher than now. Once completed and the buzz of the new stadium is at its peak, Hammond anticipates values will be up about 50 percent from today.

Hammond, who was planning on selling one of his investment properties in Germantown next spring, said he now plans to hold on to the condo until the first season of baseball in the new stadium.

“It could be a remarkable little ride for Germantown,” Hammond said.

With Germantown already flourishing, the biggest impact might be most noticeable in the area’s other neighborhoods.

“Hope Gardens and Buena Vista are seriously underdeveloped,” Hammond said. “That all turns around the moment they open the stadium doors. Those neighborhoods need some sort of big development to be the spark.”

After looking at the Metro property records, I can certainly understand why State Representative Jason Powell is excited about a new ballpark; he co-owns 3 properties located in Hope Gardens and 1 located at Buena Vista Heights/Jones Buena Vista. These are both neighborhoods that are identified as the biggest gainers from a new ballpark. Hope Gardens itself lies blocks away. String half-a-dozen Prince Fielder home runs together end-to-end, and Hope Gardens is that close to Sulphur Dell.

All of us who own property close to a new ballpark stand to benefit financially from a rise in property values a new development would bring. So, I do not blame the Democrat for acquiring investment properties over the last 4 years with hopes that their values will rise even though he does not dwell here any more. However, those of us who continue to live here have to worry about more than a return on real estate. We have to worry about protecting our families' quality of life from malignant growth and shortsighted planning. We have to demand smart, managed growth and planning for sustainability and respect for community character.

I'll say it again: I acknowledge Jason Powell's right to buy up as many properties as he wants and maximize their value to his heart's content. It is America, after all. I also acknowledge his right as a state legislator to maximize his relationship with the coattails of Mayor Karl Dean, who admittedly is the Tennessee Democratic Party's great red-state hope to beat a Republican somewhere sometime in the future. Bucking Karl Dean on a ballpark would not help a guy still fresh in his first state office (after running and losing here in our North Nashville district) and still flush with political aspirations.

But the quaintly walkable tableau that Jason Powell illustrated 3 years ago--as a spokesperson from my community to a Tennessean audience--now rings hollow, given that he presently lives close to the Nashville Zoo and leaves his real estate next to Sulphur Dell:

The neighborhoods, businesses and developments around Sulphur Dell are vibrant, supportive of a new ball park and poised for further growth. Downtown work­ers and residents, in addition to the surrounding neighborhoods of Germantown, Buena Vista, Salemtown and Hope Gardens and condos in the Sulphur Dell area, have the popula­tion to anchor attendance at games.

The location is already well-suited for professional baseball. Imagine grabbing a meal in Ger­mantown or at the Farmers Market, then relaxing at Bicentennial Mall before strolling to the ballpark to catch a game ....

If you build it we will stroll. Well, some of us will stroll. Rep. Powell will not because he no longer lives here. He owns property here. He will be driving to Sounds games at Sulphur Dell.

That is a proposition different than what our neighborhoods will actually face with the onslaught of traffic, the absence of transit plans, the ulterior motives of developers and the shifting goalposts of the community planning process along with the politicians who debase it. At least he has the certainty of greater property value without the challenges of living next to a large entertainment venue. Even so, he also should disclose the fact of his holdings whenever he uses the visibility of his office to tout the new Sulphur Dell.

Whether or not a Sulphur Dell ballpark might be a home run for all of us who live around it is still up in the air. For State Representative Powell it would appear to be more of a walk-off home run.


UPDATE: I guess none of us should be surprised that on opening day of the ballpark (April 17, 2015), Jason Powell is gushing about First Tennessee Park.

Putting himself center: Jason Powell

I think back to those heady days of "Friends of Sulphur Dell" when he was gathering a few friendly neighborhood representatives (ignoring those with questions) and touting his movement as "grassroots," never characterizing it as his own. I suppose it is a lesson in the idea that winners write history, but now Mr. Powell is claiming "the push" for himself. Maybe we shouldn't be surprised by this either:

Elected officials are known for shameless self-promotion, but in this case Mr. Powell should be more honest and concede that he had very little to do with the building of the ballpark. In 2013, it became obvious to all that the real puppet master was Karl Dean. Everything else was pure theater.

How I got my motivation for my next Enclave donation

You may remember my post the day before yesterday on a Facebook group called "Nashville Urban School Coalition" and their flirtation with the idea of a charter school for North Nashville to compete for resources with existing schools. That post seems to have kicked up some dust and too much stabby speculation on the NUSC page:

Brian L. Heuser .... Some local bloggers care much more about how many hits they receive on their sites than they do about strategizing workable solutions to the challenges that active citizens/parents face. Instead of philosophizing about and judging the motives behind why residents of the urban core are seeking improvements, said local bloggers could serve a real function in disseminating understanding about the nature of the challenges and suggest potential policy solutions. These ridiculous blogs (and those who write them) are a pathetic excuse for civic engagement.

Well, let me say initially that if my main goal is hits on my website, I'm an abject failure. First of all, I chose a hyper-local venue, which guarantees I will receive fewer hits than other pages. Second, all you have to do is compare my stats to the those of websites that have also been live for 7 years and you'll likely find that their hits blow mine out of the water.

Likewise with ad revenues. I've earned practically nothing blogging and the revenue checks I have received from Google ads have been donated to non-profits in my community like The Nashville Jazz Workshop, Fisk University, Second Harvest, North Nashville Flood Relief Group, the Nashville Neighborhoods Resource Center, and Friends of Nashville Farmer's Market. In the grand scheme of things, that wasn't a huge net for those organizations, but I have given back benefits to the local community that came to me because I wrote about that community.

But my purpose in blogging has never been maximizing traffic or revenues. Since day 1 my mission has been to blog as an advocate and a watchdog for my community. So, I feel no sense of inadequacy on the question of whether I've served my community. If anyone wants a full story on me in North Nashville, a sizable summary of that story is contained here in 6,500-some-odd posts for those who choose to read it.

In keeping with that sense of service, I am motivated to donate my latest revenue check (around $100) to Buena Vista Enhanced Option Elementary School, which the gentrifying parents here derided (sometimes unfairly so) in the Tennessean story that first publicized them. The North Nashville magnets were secondarily criticized as being an inadequate solution in these parents' minds to Buena Vista. We've already made donations to our daughter's magnet, and she is there because we participated in civic efforts with the Jones community to save the school several years ago, back when Salemtown kids were bused to the zoned school in West Nashville and we were interested only in neighborhood schools.

However, I also recognize that as goes Buena Vista, so goes the quality of life in North Nashville. So, rather than cursing the darkness and supporting a new magnet or charter (as have been proposed), I'll light one candle for Buena Vista to express support for them. After the Tennessean story one of their teachers attended our last Salemtown meeting to address any concerns or misconceptions falling out from the journalism. I admired that and I told her that it was exactly how we got involved in the Jones Paideia community years ago. It will make a difference if community and school stay mutually involved. I have yet to see anything on Facebook that promotes that involvement.

I regret that some parents feel like they got screwed after moving into Germantown and Hope Gardens as a backdoor into West Nashville's Eakin and the Hillsboro cluster. We didn't move to Salemtown with the same intentions because we knew moving here wasn't a short cut to a high demand school. We were of the mind that when our infant grew to elementary age we would have to scratch and claw so that she could succeed. And we have committed ourselves to being involved parents in day-to-day education, which is exactly what makes for high performance in the elementary years.

If a new school is built it will be high-demand and/or grasping-at-straws and it will end up competing for limited resources with our established public schools. As a public school parent, I view a new charter as a threat to my child's education. The parental instinct kicks in. It's nothing personal.

Now I'm not asking people to like my civic engagement.  We all have our own way of doing it. But to say that my blog is not about civic engagement is wrong. This blog is not a bulletin board or a newsletter. It is a forum. I engage my community by blogging and with few exceptions I permit responses good, bad, or indifferent.

And it is not an either-or. I both blog and attend many community events and meetings, and I engage people face-to-face. But Rosa Parks Boulevard runs both ways, and I've not seen any of the more apoplectic members of this Facebook group present at meetings on this side of the North End. They insist they care about educating everyone, even those who live north of Monroe Street (the former boundary of the Eakin zone). So, why do I never see them out and about up here, civically engaging across our community?

Buena Vista elementary student attacks a fellow student with a pocketknife

Buena Vista Elementary Enhanced Option School is in the Buena Vista neighborhood on 9th Avenue, North:

"Urban core" Facebook group considers charter option in place of partnering with North Nashville public schools

Some would rather switch than fight:

It is worth noting that the North End feeder school, Buena Vista, is 97% reduced price lunch and 97% African American. A charter school may provide sanctuary for kids from gentrifying families here, but it will not change the dysfunctional class and race dynamics of the system. Our neighborhood quality of life will not rise without the quality of the schools rising and a charter will not help them rise.

Buena Vista demographics. Source: ProPublica

So, would a charter school essentially become an exclusive island apart from both Buena Vista and the area magnet schools?

North Nashville Community Plan: Salemtown Scenarios, Part I

For weeks now I've had questions from Metro Planning sitting on my desk regarding community plans for Salemtown for the next 10 years. I got them because Planning scheduled the Salemtown-Germantown community meeting during the week of Metro Schools spring break, when we were on spring break. I attended the meeting before that for the Jones-Buena Vista neighborhoods, since I am a Jones Paideia parent. However, I was told that I should either answer the questions for Salemtown either by e-mail for Planning or attend a later meeting with MetroCenter "neighborhoods." It made no sense to me that I could have input at the MetroCenter meetings, but not with the Jones-Buena Vista meeting, which was not exactly well attended, so I did not attend the MetroCenter meeting even as I played by the rules at the earlier meeting.

All that is to say, I'm going to give my feedback to Planning's questions via e-mail and I'm going to publish them on this blog. I've already given some of my input at the Jones-Buena Vista meeting: sound barriers for the I-65 corridor that cuts through Jones & Salemtown, a spoke-like greenway that connect the Jones neighborhood to the Looby community center and beyond that through MetroCenter to the Cumberland Levee greenway, making Buchanan Street a more sustainable business area. But I have many more ideas for Salemtown. So, here we go.

Where are the existing parks in your community? Do the existing parks in the neighborhood meet your needs? If yes, how do they meet your needs? If they do not meet your needs how can it be improved to do so? Open space does not always have to be a park. If other open space exists or is needed what type of open space would it be and where would it be located?

The existing parks in Salemtown include Morgan Park and the Downtown Connector Greenway. The greenway system meets the pedestrian and biking needs of the community well. It is prone to some abuse by vehicular traffic as I have seen cars parked on walking paths at Morgan Park for athletic practices and on the Cumberland River for people who fish. Also, trash is dumped at some spots along the river, which calls for both surveillance and receptacles. Finally, there were some young trees planted along the connector during the drought a couple of years ago that were not watered in a way to match the harsh weather. They have been taken out and should be replaced.

The changes at Morgan Park over the past few years seem to minimize children's participation. Greenway development, a new fountain, and landscaping attract adults, but the baseball diamond that existed for generations was removed a couple of years ago and the field remains undedicated to anything but random use. It took us years to get a dangerous old playground demolished and a new one put in, but the new one is small. The playground could use a few more features dedicated to children of various ages.

Another greenspace that needs landscaping work is the strip that runs in front of Metro Water Services on 3rd Avenue, North from I-65 on the north to the Magdeburg greenway spur on the south. Salemtown residents have an ugly view of the Central Wastewater plant. Either the plant needs to do more to conceal its sewage tanks or someone should put up screening trees and shrubs along the green 3rd Avenue strip.

The 2002 neighborhood plan called for this green strip to be a civic open space. To become civic, it is going to need sidewalks or paths, landscape architecture, seating, and an attractive blocking wall instead of a chain link fence running the length of the plant's edge. These are some of the basic ingredients that make small public spaces attractive. Other possibilities include water features (which could recall the plant-obstructed Cumberland River) and a possible Riverfront Redevelopment Plan Transit stop (perhaps a trolley driveway). Research indicates that elements like these make urban spaces social. 3rd Avenue has been the neglected part of Salemtown. Converting the MWS strip could turn that around.

Finally, another green strip that needs some attention is that abutting Coffee Street and I-65 from 3rd Avenue to Rosa Parks Boulevard. A previous neighborhood plan called for pocket parks in that area. Regardless of whether that happens, some sort of sound-blocking screen should be constructed between Salemtown and the interstate highway. West Nashville residents enjoy a sound wall along I-440, while chain link fences seem to be TDOT's answer for North Nashville. Either a sound wall or a screen of large trees and shrubs should be installed to block Salemtown from noise and sight pollution.

Metro Nashville needs to spend at least as much energy and effort on the North Nashville parks and greenspaces as it does on the public jewels in West Nashville and the East End.

Block Grant Money Makes Real Streetscape Difference in Buena Vista

Federal block grant money has been used in the Historic Buena Vista neighborhood (just northwest of Downtown) to make significant quality of life changes to the streetscape. The changes include a traffic-calming, aesthetically pleasing median on Madison Street, neighborhood identifying signs, and period-distinctive streetlights and street signs. The signage incorporates the rose window feature of the historic building that current houses Hopewell Baptist Church.



Just to the east of Buena Vista, Salemtown has been granted its own federal funds for improvements to its streetscape. Its Citizen Advisory Committee meets tonight at 6:30 at the Randee Rogers Center on Rosa Parks to continue to discuss the possibilities with its landscape architect.

North End's Buena Vista School Receives History Channel Grant

The new Tennessean reporter covering the North End neighborhoods, Chris Jones (who replaced Nancy Deville), had a story in yesterday's edition concerning a $10,000 grant awarded to fourth-graders at Buena Vista Enhanced Option Elementary School for studying the history of the school's community. Buena Vista School sits at the intersection of 9th Ave., N. and Garfield St.

The Question Of Closing Smaller Schools

I am not sure what has happened to the Metro School Board's inclinations to close smaller schools in the wake of the defeat of the sales tax referendum back in September. I have not heard a word on the matter since the Tennessean published a piece that included a list of smallest schools that might be closed and students moved elsewhere.

That article also reported that one tax opponent charged that the Board was "trying to punish" those who voted against the Mayor's sales tax. I'm not claiming to speak for the Board, but to argue that closing smaller public schools is punishment of sales tax opponents (of which I am one) is wild and unsubstantiated and a bit conspiratorial.

The schools most likely to be closed come from every part of Davidson county, including some in lower income and city neighborhoods where majorities voted to support the sales tax referendum. The urban neighborhoods in East Nashville seem to have the lion's share of small schools that might be closed under this proposal. Given that suburban neighborhoods presented the greatest opposition to the referendum, if there were some sort of conspiracy afoot, then they would have the lion's share of possible closures.

Buena Vista School here in the North End is on the closing list, but I cannot imagine that any of our cluster schools would be targeted for punishment if there really were a conspiracy against opposition voters. Conspiracy or no, to lose Buena Vista would be a damned shame. I hope that the lack of information on the original proposal to close smaller schools signals the death of the proposal.

I don't envy the hard decisions that the Board has to make now, and it's a truly thankless job when your more strident opponents would rather cavalierly hit the golf links after the election instead of sticking around to help you gut out some workable solutions to answer the challenges of teaching our children with less money. I just hope that those solutions don't include closing treasured and historic institutions like Buena Vista, a link to our neighborhood's past.

Crime Alert: home invasion in the Buena Vista neighborhood

According to NewsChannel5 and police scanner reports, there was a home invasion on 9th Av N near Garfield St (in or near the Cheatham Place housing complex) his morning. Police used a helicopter to search for 2 suspects (I do not have descriptions). Victims were not injured. Nearby Buena Vista School was put on lock-down for a while to protect students, teachers, & staff from the invaders

Not Good for the North End: New Urbanism's Variations on White Flight

According to Jeff Woods, "Chamber of Commerce types" lobbied the School Board and the Redistricting Task Force to exempt Germantown, Hope Gardens, Salemtown, and Downtown from the MNPS redistricting plan because allegedly white parents here do not want to send their kids to school with black kids. This news couldn't have come at a worse time for the neighborhoods, given that the four presidents of the neighborhoods' associations were called together by HGI President Stacy Mosley to draft a letter opposing the plan roughly about the time that the lobbying commenced at a Chamber of Commerce sponsored conference in Miami, FL. The timing sucks dry any credibility the letter might have had, in my opinion, and I have to wonder if there was some coordination between the Chamber's lobbying and the calling of the presidents together.

While I already declared my opposition to Ms. Mosley's reasons for signing the letter, I was opposed to the redistricting plan because I thought that a neighborhood school needed to be placed in the old Fehr School Building in Salemtown rather than using Buena Vista. But I would have raised all kinds of objections about SNNA President Freddie O'Connell signing the letter if I would have known at the time what was going down in Florida. To his credit, Freddie has already told us that he was signing it not for the group but as an individual. And in a June 3 letter to the association he gave his personal reasons for signing, and he was explicit in his opposition to white flight:

I will not sign my name to anything I suspect of indicating a white flight mentality. Ultimately, I believe that neighborhood schools will play a critical role in revitalizing Nashville's public school system. For the reasons I cite in this letter, however, I'm not sure that this step taken in this way at this time is the best step toward neighborhood schools.

However, it is unfortunate that Salemtown is being associated now with what looks like a new urbanist strain of white flight. I wonder how much Ms. Mosley knew about the lobbying that she didn't divulge when she called the presidents together.

Finally and for the record, despite the Woods' characterization of young white professionals in these neighborhoods, we've never referred to ourselves as "urban pioneers" (every reference to "pioneers" on Enclave since 2005 is someone else's quote). Frankly, the people that seem to like referring to urban dwellers like us as "pioneers" are the Realtors and developers who are trying to invent and market a lifestyle that doesn't exist in reality. Also, the broad generalization that white parents don't want to send their kids to school with black kids may be true of the Chamber of Commerce types lobbying against the plan, but it is not true of all of us who live in these neighborhoods.


UPDATE: Task Force sticks by its guns, but adds three additional public hearings (which should have been scheduled in the first place), including one at MetroCenter/Buena Vista's John Early Middle. I'm pretty sure that Salemtown is not in the Hillsboro cluster as Amy Griffith reports; it's in the Hillwood cluster.

Tennessean Article on "Mean Streets" Focuses on Cheatham Place and Points West

Tim Gianni describes how $228,000 in federal law enforcement funding is paying the overtime for Metro Police officers who work the "Safer Streets Program." The article is gives a good overview of how the community affairs officers and special investigation teams work together in higher crime neighborhoods. Gianni focuses on the neighborhoods from Cheatham Place (9th Av N) to 23rd Av N, which include Historic Buena Vista, Jones Buena Vista, Osage, and Fisk.

Buena Vista Block Grant Beginning to Generate Results

If you have not yet made your way down Monroe Street west from 8th Avenue, North, you might not have seen the construction on the Historic Buena Vista Neighborhood's Gateway Project.


The streetscape plans call for a traffic-calming median, landscaping, a crosswalk, and gateway signage (which takes the form of the rose window in the church pictured above).


The Salemtown block grant is awaiting clarification from MDHA as to the results of the design team selection process. As a participant in that selection process, I am not at liberty to say much about it, except that we should probably hear results in September.

A nice thank-you note

From Buena Vista Enhanced Option elementary teacher, Ms. Norton:

Thank you so much for supporting Buena Vista! Your donation will go towards our 70th Anniversary celebration on October 28, 2011.

The Urban Core Formerly Known as the North End Announces It Is Coming Out Tonight

Christian Grantham induced the following announcement from community leaders yesterday on Twitter:

North Nashville Urban Core Neighborhoods Celebrate National Night Out Against Crime, Tuesday, Aug. 4th

Multiple Neighborhoods Convene at Future Site of Museum of African-American Music, Art, and Culture

Collaborating to send a positive message of partnership within neighborhoods, among neighborhoods, and with local law enforcement, several North End neighborhoods are organizing an event as part of the National Night Out Against Crime. Representatives of Germantown, Salemtown, Hope Gardens, Buena Vista, and the Harrison Square development are hoping to bring people together for a night of community building and fun. Food and music will begin at the corner of Jefferson Street and Rosa L. Parks Boulevard on Tuesday, Aug. 4th at 6:30 p.m. The event will be family-friendly, and there will be activities and goodies available for kids.

"Several of our neighbors have been the victims of crimes over the past year, and we're following the wisdom of Councilwoman Erica Gilmore to break the code of silence," said Salemtown Neighbors Neighborhood Association president Freddie O'Connell. "This event has been an important part of bringing people together--white, black...everyone--to prevent crime and to let criminals know that we stand together as neighbors and as a community."

Neighbors will meet at starting points in each neighborhood and will then process with police escorts to the future site of the Museum of African-American Music, Art, and Culture.

All processions will begin at 6 p.m. Meeting locations are:

Germantown: the corner of 5th Avenue North and Monroe Street
Salemtown: Morgan Park at the corner of 4th Avenue North and Hume Street
Hope Gardens: Hope Gardens Park
Buena Vista: the corner of 10th Avenue North and Monroe Street
Harrison Square: pavilion area

Neighbors can join a procession in each neighborhood or proceed directly to the final destination. "We look forward to the whole community turning out," said O'Connell. "Our neighborhood organizations have enjoyed a great relationship with the Metro Nashville Police Department, and we want everyone in the area to benefit from this partnership."

Hope Gardens Association Announces Its Night Out Against Crime

From Jason Powell:

The Night Out Against Crime event on Tuesday, August 4th is going to be great. Please plan on meeting at Hope Gardens park at 6pm so we can march over together to meet the other neighborhoods. Thanks!

Time: August 4, 2009 from 6pm to 9pm Location: Hope Gardens Park then Corner of Rosa Parks & Jefferson St (African American Cultural Museum Future Location) Organized By: Jason Powell Event Description: Hope Gardens NA is partnering with Germantown, Salemtown, & Buena Vista to have one great Night Out Against Crime event. We will meet at Hope Gardens park as a neighborhood then march together to join the other neighborhoods at the corner of Jefferson Street & Buena Vista (future home of the African American History Museum) at the BiCentennial Mall. There will be food, drinks, music, and activities for the children. We will have several special guests in attendance. Please make plans to meet at Hope Gardens Park at 6 or meet us at Rosa Parks & Jefferson Street after 6:30. This is going to be a great event and an awesome time to meet your North End neighbors.

Article on 1957 Nashville Desegregation Includes Photos of North End's Buena Vista School

John Egerton's Tennessean piece has the details of Nashville's response to the judicial directive to desegregate its public schools. Photos attached to the story include one of a black student headed into the front door of Buena Vista School (which is now a Middle Magnet School on 9th Avenue near Garfield Street) and one of white protesters scowling and sneering at black children walking toward the school. They are powerful photos.