Marathon Is An Anchor For The Northwest Crescent

Image pre-dates January 1, 1923 and under U.S. copyright law is in the public domain.

Yesterday's Nashville City Paper reported promising news on Marathon Village (on the way from the Hope Gardens neighborhood to Midtown and the West End). Reportedly, WRLT-FM 100.1, Lightning 100, will join designers, photographers, and a microbrewery, all of whom are already tenants of long-time Marathon Village owner Barry Walker.

I heard word on the street just a couple of days ago that the gravel parking lot at Marathon is going to get paved, and that there are discussions between Family Wash (East Nashville) co-owner Julia Helton and Linus Hall of Yazoo Brewing Co. on starting a restaurant at Marathon. One of the linchpins expected to provide impetus to growth around Marathon Village is the anticipated replacement of Andrew Jackson Courts (public housing) with single family dwellings like those currently being built on the Sam Levy public housing site in East Nashville.

I have this vision of the historic north-by-northwest neighborhoods forming a culture-rich crescent around Capitol Hill/Downtown. That crescent would run from the Neuhoff Building in East Germantown, arc at 8th near Jeff Street, and culminate at Marathon. And a great series of neighborhoods already lays along that crescent. 5th Ave., the "Avenue of the Arts," already intersects it. In my dreams, it would be the North End's version of the East End's "Five Points," but with more of a classically urban, rather than street-car-suburban, flair.

Marathon Village is an important component to the revitalization of north-by-northwest neighborhoods. They, like the Farmers Market and Werthan Lofts, are an anchor for redevelopment spreading throughout our communities.