Don't know about the accuracy of the 150-year-old North Capitol history, but the geography is all wrong

Pith in the Wind blogger Betsy Phillips contends that she "solved the mystery" of a 150-year-old photo taken of Civil War soldiers during the Battle of Nashville. She argues that the photo was taken from Capitol Hill facing Germantown and North Nashville, given the current topography:

Well, there's only one place in town where you're going to be on a hill, overlooking a train trestle, and can see Fisk off in the distance — Capitol Hill facing Germantown. Here's a contemporary picture from the TSLA for comparison (though you can't see Fisk, because of the trees, but you can see farther than Fisk, because you can see the highrise on the far side of the river in Bordeaux, thus, if there were no trees, you'd be able to see Fisk.).

The problem with Phillips' theory is that the 2010 photo above could not possibly have captured Fisk in its angle. TSLA's camera orientation is pointed northwest. Fisk lies at an angle farther west of the camera position. A look at screenshot from Google Earth makes that plain:

Click on to enlarge.

The Bordeaux highrise Kelly Miller Smith Tower (not included in the screenshot, but to the left of center in the TSLA photo) lies on a direct line down 10th Ave N., through Fifteenth Avenue Baptist Church (whose steeple is clearly seen in the TSLA photo) to Capitol Hill. The farthest straight western line shown in the TSLA photo stops near where Jefferson Street crosses over the interstate, 3 blocks east of the Fisk campus. The Bordeaux highrise Kelly Miller Smith Tower is near Clarksville Highway, which drops down south to become D.B. Todd, Jr. Blvd, which brushes up against Fisk, but that road is not a straight shot between the highrise tower and the university. The road doglegs away from downtown at Clay St. Fisk does not actually sit between Capitol Hill and the Bordeaux highrise Kelly Miller Smith Tower. It sits off to the western side.

By the way, the photo of Fisk that appears on the masthead of my blog was taken from a spot near the intersection of Union and 9th Av. N, not too far from Capitol Hill. The sunset should tell you I am pointing my camera west. Also note that there are leaves on trees, but Fisk's main buildings sit high enough on a hill itself so as not to be blocked from sight. The Jubilee Bridge can also be seen in the masthead to the left of the Memorial Chapel's spire. Again, the theory that the TSLA shot--taken on the northern side of Capitol Hill--includes Fisk does not hold water.

Obviously I cannot speak to the actual location of the 150-year-old photo or the history of North Nashville during the Civil War, but I can say that if Betsy Phillips is operating under the assumption that the 2010 photo includes the Fisk campus, her theory that Capitol Hill is the only place the old photo could have been snapped is itself open to debate.

Whether the history is right, the geography is all wrong.


UPDATE: Based on Mike Peden's comments below and in respect for the legacy of the late Rev. Kelly Miller Smith, I corrected my references to the "Bordeaux highrise" to reflect its proper name.

Megan Barry should explain her claim that a consolidated government helps Metro Nashville avoid a Ferguson-like tragedy

In the only statement I have seen from mayoral candidate Megan Barry on the implications of the shooting of Mike Brown in Ferguson, MO and the resulting protests and police crackdowns in St. Louis County, she tweeted the following with a link to an Atlantic article on city-county consolidation:

Good piece @CityLab on city/county gov't. Nashville isn't perfect - but consolidated gov't helps.

Helps what? Helps make sure that African-Americans in Nashville get more equitable opportunities? Helps make Nashville less racist? Helps to keep police from turning their powerful military-style weapons against nonviolent protesters and innocent neighborhoods?

Reading the Atlantic piece sheds little or no light on what Ms. Barry is driving at. It claims that consolidated government would "knock down some of the structural barriers that prevent black residents in St. Louis County from succeeding." How has the consolidation of Nashville and Davidson County knocked down structural barriers? Before April 1, 1963 (when Nashville's consolidation became official) one of the most dramatic revolutions in Nashville history occurred when Nashville desegregated. It was in no way facilitated by consolidated government.

Instead, the Nashville sit-ins emerged, lead by young African-Americans--trained in non-violent tactics--who challenged segregated lunch counters by sitting in "Whites Only" areas. They were beat up by violent white mobs and then arrested by the Nashville police. They resisted without returning the violence. They tactically refused bail. As more waves of demonstrators filled up the jails, other African-Americans engaged in a crippling boycott of Downtown businesses.

The climax of the sit-ins occurred after the home of African-American Alexander Looby, who lived in North Nashville, was dynamite-bombed. The next day a large number of Nashvillians marched to the courthouse, where they were greeted by Mayor Ben West, a moderate who had before that day had left questions of segregated lunch counters to storeowners. In a dramatic moment sit-in leader Diane Nash asked Mayor West if he thought segregation was wrong. Mayor West responded: " I appeal to all citizens to end discrimination, to have no bigotry, no bias, no hatred." Taylor Branch tells the rest:

"Do you mean that to include lunch counters?" asked Nash, pressing the issue. She was standing face to face with the mayor. Her bravado hushed the crowd into silence.

"Little lady," West replied trying to be genial, "I stopped segregation seven years ago at the airport when I first took office, and there has been no trouble since."

Nash bored in relentlessly, "Then, Mayor, do you recommend that lunch counters be desegregated?"

West, a moderate white politician skewered in public before an emotional crowd answered the crucial question with a single word, "Yes." This drew cheers.

A short time thereafter Nashville businesses began to desegregate.

Consolidation was still 3 years away. What helped Nashville in 1960 was not unifying city and county governments. What helped Nashville was a disciplined protest movement with a clear strategy, practiced tactics and a willingness to suffer for their cause. What helped Nashville was an economic boycott that brought business leaders to their knees and forced them to see change as progress. What helped Nashville was a mayor who when cornered saw the wisdom of embracing the people's cause, which was also the just cause (even if he continued later to equivocate as moderates do). What would a Mayor Barry be willing to do to help take such a step?

What also helped Nashville was a national context: a movement that would leverage federal laws making segregation illegal. But before Nashville became the first US city to consolidate, it became the first southern city to desegregate. The disciplined non-violent action against segregation at lunch counters and movie theaters continued up through the year of consolidation until the next year with passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (making desegregation the law of the land). So, how can Ms. Barry claim, without explanation, that "consolidated gov't helps" keep us from becoming St. Louis County, where racism still seems to have a free hand?

Frankly, the Atlantic piece she calls "good" seems to be using the publicity of the Michael Brown slaying and the situation in Ferguson to draw the frenetic traffic of the last 10 days to arguments that the author deeply holds without real connections to breaking news. As a result I do not find the article compelling. It provides practically no comparative evidence for judging whether events in Ferguson are more likely to happen because of unconsolidated St. Louis instead of consolidated Indianapolis. It makes the bizarre claim that poor people in Ferguson are more prone to predatory lending. As if they are not in cities with consolidated government, like Nashville?

The number of payday lenders has exploded in Nashville as have the campaign donations those lenders give to council members, mayoral candidates, and people running for the General Assembly. If our consolidated government "helps," as Megan Barry claims, how do so many predatory lending outlets charge poor Nashvillians such sky-high interest rates while lining the pockets of powerful politicians? Davidson County no more makes consumer protection from predatory lending a priority than St. Louis County seems to. Is Ms. Barry indicating that she might use consolidated government to regulate the lenders? That would be a breath of fresh air after Karl Dean, who once crowed: "The less regulation of business we do, the better."

I do not have any objections to the concept of consolidated government. It does a lot of good things for Nashvillians. I would not want the separation that plagues St. Louis.

By the same token, I believe that candidates for the Mayor's Office should formulate clear ideas on how they would govern in a crisis like the one in Missouri without reaching for rationalizations just to make us feel better that we are not like them. Ferguson is preying on the minds of many Nashville voters. We should expect clear answers from candidates; not convoluted references to consolidation designed to make our city seem sheltered against prejudice and military-like crackdowns.

Consolidation did not save Nashville from segregation. Why would it shelter us from resegregation?


UPDATE: The Mt. Zion Baptist Church Facebook page announces:

a town hall meeting to discuss the recent Ferguson, Missouri, riots and launch Nashville Unites, an initiative with the following objectives: 1) foster dialogue between police and citizens; 2) propose a community liaison program between precincts and their communities; 3) develop youth leadership; 4) highlight Mt. Zion’s mentoring program for adult men; and 5) commit to follow-through on all initiatives so as to build trust and ensure a more peaceful city that is a national model for collaboration

I am hearing that Megan Barry as well as other candidates for office have signed on to participate. I appreciate that they have put their "ice bucket challenges" on hold long enough to respond to pressing matters that concern the actual responsibilities of a mayor. Maybe we will get some substantive answers from her on what if anything consolidation has to do with stopping police brutality in underrepresented communities. The mayoral candidates are coming to North Nashville.



UPDATE: According to a commenter below, Ben West's historic encounter with Diane Nash happened somewhat differently than the way Taylor Branch reported. The Nashville Mayor was said to be speaking out of school on his role in integrating the airport:

On the steps of the courthouse with Diane Nash and Mayor West that day was Rev. C.T. Vivian. When West proclaimed to have integrated the lunch counters at the airport, it was Rev. Vivian who reminded the mayor that it was President Kennedy who had integrated the airport as this was federal property. West tried to take credit for something that he had not done as to appear that he had been supportive of the cause. After Vivian called him on it, and Nash put the question to him again, the mayor searched his heart and agreed with Miss Nash. (Heard Rev. Vivian tell this account himself).

Go to the comment section to read the rest of her or his thoughts.

 

Metro Historical Commission to present completed map of Bells Bend history tomorrow

This comes on short notice, but it looks like a worthwhile event for those of you with interest in local oral history and those of you who have been advocates of Bells Bend in the past. Tomorrow, Saturday July 26th, at 2:00pm at the Wade School Tim Walker of Nashville's Historical Commission will review a completed map of historic sites that have been identified via local knowledge.

The Historical Commission and the Nashville Public Library documented and recorded oral histories from Scottsboro-Bells Bend neighbors. They also gathered the neighbors together to pinpoint specific areas connected to those histories. The map that Mr. Walker will present is the culmination of that interaction. Organizers hope to recognize these important areas with historic markers.


UPDATE: Dozens of neighbors attended the Scottsboro/Bells Bend community meeting at Wade School on Saturday, which was designed to gather more historical information in light of the 70+ significant sites already documented in the community. Tim Walker told those in attendance that he made his first visit to Bells Bend a few years ago and was immediately impressed that such a unique place with rural culture existed so close to urban Nashville. He also asked the group to come up with more information that might have been missing from the oral histories they had collected and to identify more sites. Community leader Joe Engle told the audience that there was no deadline for collecting information and that the project would continue indefinitely.

While pressure might continue in the future to suburbanize or to urbanize Bells Bend, it is refreshing to hear a Metro official praise the unique culture of the area. Many of us have been believers in that kind of diversity for much longer. I want to believe that this exercise also has a way of defining community character which might be even more resistant to developers who drool at the thought of high-density infilling the Bend. Above all, the history should not be lost with the passing generations. This was a positive event all the way around.

Salemtown Square coming to Salemtown. But where and how?

It is not unusual to read that Aerial Development is putting up houses in another neighborhood that cause concerns for some who already live in that neighborhood. Except for the real estate journalists who typically give them free advertising in the Tennessean, there continue to be some who have had concerns in the past with their ostentatious builds.

What I was surprised to see was a blurb in Getahn Ward's latest ode to Aerial about the developers starting work on "Salemtown Square," which will feature "six cottage-style homes." I haven't heard anything about this development. If builders are going to request any kind of zoning change, it is not yet showing up on searches I conducted on the Metro Planning website. If they are going to attempt the same sort of SP ("specific plan") rezoning (most zoning in Salemtown is "R6", which limits to duplexes or single-family detached), they will have to hold community meetings and get feedback from the neighborhood. That means incorporating feedback on everything from parking to capacity to design to materials used.

In Germantown AND East Nashville? (click on to enlarge)

The Salemtown Square website has a lot of imagery up of local vendors and organizations, but it is thin so far on the details and designs of the development itself. It also has some confusing pitch about the build "cresting" Germantown and "located in East Nashville's hot house market." Did the Aerial's content manager confuse the locations or this some sort of new marketing trend that only hipsters can understand? There is also a weird reference to to a bigger purpose: "creating a neighborhood association where old and new residents can protect, enhance and truly enjoy their new home and neighborhood." Funny, but I thought that had already happened a decade ago when we joined together to form "Salemtown Neighbors." Last time I checked, Salemtown's first association was still operational, so is Aerial going to jumpstart a competing association?

The images on the website, which I assume are intended to evoke historic feelings about Salemtown, bear little or no resemblance to any period in Salemtown's history that I have seen. This is also odd, because Salemtown Square developers claim to "honor [our] historic design and style." The area now called Salemtown was one of the original streetcar suburbs of Nashville and home to the blue-collar workers of the Warioto Cotton Mill and later the Werthan Bag Company. Aerial posts old photos of what look like a downtown square (Times Square?) and a Main Street in some unidentified locality. Old photos of Salemtown suggest a different kind of community. What eventually gets built may or may not have continuity with our real history regardless of the marketing hype.

Salemtown (inset photo) did not resemble Aerial's Main Street image 

Aerial developers have raised eyebrows in Salemtown in the past. I've heard long-time residents express displeasure about their disregard for the community. The people I have listened to do not believe Aerial has "honored" their history or style in the recent past. We will see what their plans are with Salemtown Square. If they eventually have to request rezoning for this development, they will have to listen to feedback from the neighborhood, and if they request an SP rezoning, they will be required to incorporate neighborhood input into their plan.


UPDATE: The Salemtown Square website seems to have disappeared. The links above take you to the Aerial website for now. The Salemtown Square domain is still registered to Aerial as this link attests. Not sure what this means, but the fact that websites can be scrubbed is one reason why I take screenshots to go with commentary.


UPDATE: The Salemtown Square website is back up and revised without WWII-era Main Street images unconnected to Salemtown of the same period. Those photos have been replaced by a photo of the old Downtown courthouse and by an aerial shot of Werthan Bag, Morgan Park, and Germantown. Closer to Salemtown, but still not Salemtown. Oh, I get it. They're going for a feeling not a fact.

They also are touting a Facebook page (which seems to be in process).

Would it kill the Nashville Sounds to add some pride of place to their new scoreboard?

The Nashville Sounds introduced then new guitar-shaped scoreboard last week with the statement, "We listen to our fans. Keeping the beloved guitar-shaped scoreboard is just part of our commitment to our supporters and to the city of Nashville."

Apparently, they don't listen to the same fans that they relied on before getting council approval for a new ballpark. In the run-up to the council vote, the team's ownership, the Mayor's Office and the design team rarely mentioned the ballpark without the name "Sulphur Dell". "Friends of Sulphur Dell" was their social media echo chamber. When the Sounds encouraged people to lobby the council for the ballpark they announced: "Come Support the Sulphur Dell Ballpark!" and used the name to rationalize the North Capitol area as the best place for baseball.

Once they received council approval, the partners in the project rarely mentioned "Sulphur Dell" again. The Friends of Sulphur Dell page fell silent immediately after the naming rights to First Tennessee were announced, which suggests to me that few in their group were interested in fighting for the historic name. Team owners have since refused to put "Sulphur Dell" anywhere close to "First Tennessee."

So I did some tinkering with the Sounds new scoreboard to see whether adding the statement "at Historic Sulphur Dell" would be that much of a drag on the First Tennessee brand:

I made an unobtrusive addition to the Sounds' planned scoreboard.

Bringing the name of the location of the ballpark below the neck of the guitar in smaller letters does nothing to take away from the primary name "First Tennessee Park". It is clearly below and thus secondary to the bank's brand. It even makes the box score board look aesthetically more balanced. This risk of adding "at Historic Sulphur Dell" to the guitar in this way risks nothing as far as I can see.

As of 07/04/2014

Meanwhile, there are a couple of benefits to adding the geographical referent. The Sounds and the Mayor's Office created popular expectations that the new ballpark would be an extension of the historic home of baseball in Nashville. The project signs currently up at the construction site still say "Sulphur Dell". A lot of people supported a new ballpark because they believe in the idea of Sulphur Dell. Including that historic moniker on the new scoreboard is a way of keeping promises that were implicitly made. It would be at best bad faith and at worst an encouragement to forget (or to never learn) for Sounds owners to exclude "at Historic Sulphur Dell."

The other benefit that I see to keeping Sulphur Dell visible in the branding of the new ballpark comes from F. Kaid Benfield, who says that people gravitate to older places because they feel grounded by them. Benfield argues that a continuity that people see in historic places gives them a sense of well-being and connectedness. We no longer have the object of old Sulphur Dell. That ballpark was torn down long ago. But adding the name as a geographical referent reminds Nashville that baseball has been played there for a long time. Hence, the name represents an arc of time into which people can be rooted in the present. Downplaying the Sulphur Dell name is akin to downplaying the sense of place and time Nashvillians (and particularly North Nashvillians) have in reference to our historic national pastime.

I understand that a lot of people are invested in a guitar-shaped scoreboard precisely for this reason: that it provides continuity with their past experiences of Greer Stadium. In my opinion, including Historic Sulphur Dell to the scoreboard is just as important and vital as the shape of the scoreboard is. We should keep in mind that Sulphur Dell existed long before Greer Stadium did.

The lawyer that Hizzoner is, he won't do much more than he is legally obligated to

Disturbing patterns keep popping up in the Mayor's behavior: he excused Metro Water's dump of toxins near Salemtown saying that they complied with the state's environmental standards; he excused Metro's lack of robust remediation of soil excavated for the new Sulphur Dell ballpark insisting that he was in communication with the state and soil like Sulphur Dell's existed everywhere Downtown.

Now his response to the American Indian Coalition's frustration with his handling of sensitive archeology in the area of the new ballpark seems to be cut from the same legalistic thought:

the group wants Metro to delay or stop construction at Sulphur Dell because of its deep Indian history. Representatives from both sides met Thursday for another discussion on the issue.

So far, the city has made no plans to stop construction. Instead, they're offering to construct a wall along the greenway to honor the history of the area, as well as some artwork to go near the end of Fourth Avenue.

"That to me is minimalization and we're tired of being minimalized, American Indian people. We are tired of being just given the very least,” said Albert Bender with the American Indian Coalition.

The Office of Mayor Karl Dean said it’s complied with all state regulations for building on ground containing artifacts.

Doesn't bold leadership require at some points going above and beyond lawyerly arguments of what is required of Metro by state law? Instead of strictly what the law demands to protect the wealthy financial interests backing this project, why not try to strike a balance with all parties as equals in this debate? AIC has excellent points about the costs of culture and history that eclipse mere temporary motives of developers:

"There is evidence of a huge, huge Native American city - Native American metropolis, ancient American area," said Albert Bender, with the American Indian Coalition.

Archaeologists were excited when some Native American salt vessels recently turned up at the Sulphur Dell construction site.

They would like to see the construction of the new Nashville Sounds stadium put on hold to further study the findings, but that is unlikely.

"That's our priority that they will open up the excavation process so that more field recovery work can take place, because there is a treasure trove of knowledge waiting to be unearthed. And the knowledge is incalculable compared to any type of delay that may result from the construction of a ballpark," Bender said.

The artifacts include broken pottery from a salt factory dating back to 1150 A.D. But the digging to find more artifacts has stopped and construction of the ballpark is moving ahead.

"Now we've capped that with some dirt, and we suspect there are other things out there. But it's not going to be coming into place as part of this construction process," said Ronald Gobbel, with Gobbel Hays Partners, Inc.

Again the parallel is striking: when the Dean Administration was covering its collective ass on its new toxic landfill near the Cumberland River here, the bureaucrats justified it by insisting that they were going to "cap" the carcinogens with some dirt. So, down below dirt in our community is a toxic dump that we need protection from and a prehistoric metropolis that should be a source of pride and continuity of place. Karl Dean would rather bury both and appeal to the law in his defense.

This Mayor's term is nearly up and there is no hope of him changing his pharisaical ways any time soon. He wants to get this ballpark done before he leaves office so that he can throw out the first pitch as the guy who built it. It will be The House That Dean Built. We can only hope that the next Mayor is less prone to sticking to legalistic ways of governing this city. We can only hope that she or he has a vision that encompasses the past as well as the future.

Local news media prompts more questions instead of hunting down answers

The hemorrhaging of strong writing continues in the traditional news media.

On the one hand, the Nashville Scene reports that the Tennessean just lost their best investigative journalist, which is sad since the Tennessean rarely bothers investigating much of anything any more. Tough questions are left to be asked by outsiders.

On the other hand, the Tennessean's business section has an intern running down stories and writing copy. Part of that copy regarding the AOL founder's recent visit to Nashville's Entrepreneur Center was "mistaken":

The startup locations Case toured — Bow Truss Building, Marathon Village and the Trolley Barns — were historical buildings left in disrepair for years and just recently renovated by the newly founded Nashville Entrepreneur Center.

To get government funding to renovate these buildings, the Nashville Entrepreneur Center raised funding from private sources and then asked the city to match this funding instead of asking for city funds first.

"(That made it) an easy yes for the mayor," Burcham said, "because there was no risk involved."

To their credit, the Center quickly responded when I tweeted about the intern's mischaracterization of the history of Nashville's historical buildings:

The Tennessean's business section editor came to the defense of his intern saying that the center did raise a lot of funds, which is not the same thing as getting millions in federal aid, a new office above the 2010 flood stage from Metro's own powerful real estate broker (MDHA) and a lot of help from the Mayor's Office. Government seems to have had as much to do with the renovations (not excusing them for their decades of inexcusable neglect of the trolley barns) as did the Entrepreneur Center itself. It seems like a seasoned reporter might have recognized that, and been less likely to leap to the conclusion that EC did it all (as well as Marathon Village renovations!)

Beyond the inaccuracies in the story, other questions prey:

• The original print media stories reported connections between the Entrepreneur Center getting grant money and the purpose of the grants being to support Tennessee flood recovery. The EC moved from its 105 Broadway offices (which flooded and which continue to be occupied by other tenants) to the trolley barns (which did not flood). I don't understand why a government grant dedicated to flood recovery would allow EC to move rather than to repair its Broadway location. The Tennessean editor responded to me yesterday that the EDA did not require flood damage to get the grant. So, why did the original reports link the grant and flood damage as if the latter were a rationale? And why were other businesses allowed to take up space in the Broadway offices that flooded after EC left rather than Metro condemning the property as flood plain?
• In the 2011 coverage of the grant award, the partnering organizations that joined EC in the trolley barn promised that in return for government funding, they would create 300 new jobs in 3 years in Nashville. It is 2014, and I can find no independent source proving that they have created 300 jobs. Did they? If they did, how many of those jobs stayed in Nashville? How many left before the 3 year timeline was used up? I followed up this morning with both the Tennessean business editor and the Nashville Business Journal asking whether EC partners followed through with promised job creation. Neither have responded. It seems to me that independent proof that the jobs were created is vital to taxpayers believing that public funds were appropriately spent on private enterprise. EC received a staggering amount of public financing. Have they paid us back for our investment in them?

"Sulphur Dell" relegated to the bleacher section of "First Tennessee Park"

According to the Nashville Business Journal:

When asked about what role Sulphur Dell will play in the new park, now that it’s been named, [the ballpark project's general manager] said a design element is being considered near the batter’s eye (the dark green rectangle space behind the center field wall) that would feature the Sulphur Dell name prominently. He also said the greenway, which runs just outside the stadium, will feature Sulphur Dell history, from its Native American roots through its more modern baseball ties.

History will occupy the cheap seats of the new Nashville Sounds ballpark.

Unearthed in Salemtown: artifact connected to Germantown pharmacist and former political leader in Nashville

Earlier today I was doing some yard work and found a small medicine bottle near the back alley with the name "Gus A. Blodau" embossed on it.

Here is what I found out about Gus Blodau with some initial research. According to the 1930 U.S. Census, Gustave Aldophus Blodau was born somewhere in Tennessee in 1868 and married to Linda Hoff Blodau. He owned a pharmacy at the corner of 5th Ave. N. (at one point named "Summer St. N.") and Monroe St. The records seem to suggest that his father, John, and a son, George, died around that same intersection. Perhaps in the family home?

Here is what the 1913 Bulletin of Pharmacy says about Gus Blodau:

... a well-known pharmacist of Nashville, Tenn., has for years been conspicuous in the political life of the city. In 1889 he was elected to the City Council. He was re-elected to the Council three times, and during his last term was president of the body. Following this service, he was appointed a member of the Board of Education by one mayor, and reappointed last January by the present mayor. In this capacity Mr. Blodau has made several trips of inspection to different cities around the country, and has made a particular study of manual training. Much credit is due him for the excellent provision now being made for manual training in the new half-million-dollar high school under erection in Nashville [Hume-Fogg?]. Incidentally it may be said the Mr. Blodau is a firm believer in public ownership, and during his service as a member of the City Council he assisted Mayor Head in the installation of a municipal lighting plant, which has made Nashville one of the best lighted cities in the South.

I dug up interesting local history with the little bottle.

The president of the league to which the Nashville Sounds belong: baseball is "not in the business of urban redevelopment"

The Pacific Coast League executive appears to be on the same page with professional researchers (who find no objective basis for subjective claims that new ballparks generate greater economic development):

When Branch Rickey [III] talks about what minor league baseball brings to a city, he doesn’t talk about increased property values or the stimulation of downtown entertainment districts. “We’re not in the business of urban redevelopment,” Rickey says. “We would not profess clairvoyance on that front.” He prefers to talk about the fan experience. And when he talks about this experience, he just happens to talk about new stadiums.

From the Friends of Sulphur Dell to Jefferson Street merchants to council members to the Mayor to the Nashville Sounds front office itself, we have seen no shortage of contriving economic impact for North Nashville of this new ballpark. Anyone who has gone all in on this game of chance is doing so on the basis of a leap of faith that Jefferson Street will naturally redevelop due to "First Tennessee Field" (or just a bunch of new apartments to be built around the ballpark).

Some of the merchants and leaders on Jeff St. even seem bent on shoving past any future stage of modest growth of locally owned stores (like those we see around places like Germantown, Five Points and 12South) to large national chains other than the ones already existing on Jeff St.:

Keisha Beard, 48, whose family has owned the property that houses the spa for 90 years, sees the ballpark becoming a reality as a sign that Jefferson Street is ready to join the big leagues. "This is the last side of town that's not been developed," she said. "We're a college street — with TSU, Fisk and Meharry — and don't even have a major restaurant chain here. The students right here need more goods and services."

Sharon Hurt, executive director of community development group Jefferson Street United Merchants Partnership, also welcomes growth opportunities but hopes any projects developers bring celebrate and embrace legacy of the once vibrant economic hub of the city's black community. "I don't want it to become so commercialized and capitalized that we lose the soul and spirit of the community" ....

"We've got Church's Chicken, we've got KFC, and we've got Popeye's — we don't need that anymore," Hurt said. "I would rather see more diversity like Chipotle, Panera Bread and Smoothie King.

This is part of the problem I have with those who dream of economic development: they do not seem careful about what they ask for. I would like to see a thriving Jefferson Street economy, but why not along the lines of an urban village with locally-owned shops and other offerings? Do we really want Jeff St. to boom like West End or Green Hills and their national chains? The charming and popular Magazine Street neighborhood in New Orleans finds itself facing the loss of its local character and struggling with the influx of national chains, which kill the neighborhood vibe.

Magazine St., which we enjoyed on our last vacation

Is that what we really want for Jefferson Street?

These exaggerated expectations are all part of the unrealistic view of the impact of a ballpark on hyperlocal economy. Hopes around here are irrationally bloated by the prospect of a ballpark divorced from awareness of the risks of new construction.

And yet, even the president of the Sounds' league remains sober enough to acknowledge that new ballpark construction does not increase property values or stimulate growth.

He seems to realize that wishful thinking won't alter reality. And yet, he can still advocate building new ballparks. There are those among us who could learn something from Branch Rickey.


UPDATE: As I update this post at the end of August 2015, Sharon Hurt is involved in a run-off as a candidate for an at-Large seat on Metro Council. She will probably win, which will give her a perch from which to achieve her expectation of chain-store development along Jefferson Street.

Given that August 2015 also includes the 10-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina striking New Orleans, I have been reading Roberta Brandes Gratz's "We're Still Here Ya Bastards: How the People of New Orleans Rebuilt Their City." From Gratz's perspective, Magazine Street can still teach us about sustainable and smart development along the Jefferson Street corridor without reference to chain-store businesses and big-box stores:

World-famous Magazine Street is a national treasure, a remarkable six-mile stretch that, like the rule-defying traffic patterns of the city streets, contradicts many assumptions about shopping streets. It has rebounded in full force since the storms and serves as the model for shorter, more localized streets where rents are lower. It is the largest of the local shopping streets, passing through several different neighborhoods and attracting shoppers from out of town as well. This shopping street evolved without big plans, large developers, or cookie-cutter formulas.

In the 1950s and ’60s, when the car became more important than the pedestrian, many cities turned their primary shopping streets one-way—yet another of those mid-century trends intended to speed car traffic, to which New Orleans did not succumb. Only minutes from the central business district, Magazine is a two-way traffic street with only one lane each way, giving the street an intimate feel. Metered parking spaces line both sides. Pedestrians cross comfortably. Cars coming from the side streets edge across carefully without the help of traffic lights. Major thoroughfares with traffic lights cross at half-mile intervals. These are the signature New Orleans boulevard-like streets with two lanes of traffic each way separated by a median—the “neutral ground,” which is landscaped differently in each neighborhood. In its entirety, Magazine Street epitomizes what [Jane] Jacobs describes as a “close grained diversity of uses that give each other constant mutual support, both economically and socially.

Many of us believe that Jeff St is a Nashville treasure, but it can be more with community-based planning and development instead of the relentless eradication spurred by unchained growth under market forces alone.

Gratz also cites a 2009 study that included data from Magazine Street. The study concludes that locally business generates twice the sales of big-box stores and recirculates twice the revenue as that recirculated by chain stores in the local economy. I have no doubt that college students with their limited perspective of Jeff St history would enjoy more chain stores (with which they are acquainted) along the corridor. I have no doubt that Ms. Hurt, if she becomes a council member, will lobby the Mayor's Office to give tax breaks and other corporate welfare to national companies so that they will flip Jeff St into West End Av. That would be a total waste of an opportunity to help local businesses generate an economy that would recirculate resources back into our North Nashville neighborhoods at a faster clip than Target or Chipolte could. It would also be a total waste of the chance to instill the pride of supporting smaller-scale, locally-owned businesses.

Breaking: Nashville Sounds owner scrubs the historic title "Sulphur Dell" from the name of the new ballpark

Mayor Karl Dean even gushed:
"Nashville won't make a cent off this!"

Sometimes I really hate having my healthy cynicism about people in power confirmed, but it was this morning. Wealthy real estate developer and owner of the Nashville Sounds Frank Ward just announced the naming rights of the new ballpark at the Sulphur Dell site. The name announced is, "First Tennessee Ballpark, Home of the Nashville Sounds" (named after the bank).

Mr. Ward and First Tennessee seem to have agreed to purge the historical moniker "Sulphur Dell" completely from the official title of the new ballpark. Obviously, the brand won't stoop to bear the historic context of the area adjacent to my neighborhood.

Looks like I was not exaggerating last week (in reporting the demolition of the state fountain commemorating the old sulphur spring that gave birth to a city) when I intimated that developers are willing to wipe away history to squeeze a few more bucks to add to their obscene piles of cash. I keep looking for the ballpark/mixed-use development team to prove me wrong about my concerns with this agreement, but today's announcement is the latest sign that these folks are willing to use our history as a sales pitch to grease the skids of politics, but they are not necessarily serious about embracing it.

We have been told to trust an accelerated process. We have been preached at over and over by Friends of Sulphur Dell, by the Mayor's Office, by opportunistic Metro Council members, by supporters far and wide that building a new ballpark as quickly as possible without proper public process is the best way of honoring the history of our area and the history of baseball at Sulphur Dell. With one morning press conference Metro, the Nashville Sounds and a bank just wiped all of that away.


UPDATE: Couldn't resist broadcasting this little dig at the now extraneous Friends of Sulphur Dell as it appeared on Twitter

UPDATE: Reporter Steven Hale has a rundown of the questions to ask elected officials and team brass that no other reporters are asking in the wake the ballpark naming kerfuffle. Take note that he cites the comments from Jerry Maynard about baseball "going back to Sulphur Dell". That got me thinking about CM Maynard's other comments employed to get the Mayor's plan passed without proper public input:

In 2008, we formed Friends of Sulphur Dell right here at Farmers Market, with Freddie [O'Connell, president of the Salemtown Neighbors Neighborhood Association, who was standing nearby] and all the neighborhood association and groups,” Maynard said, following the meeting. “And we didn't know if it was going to happen, but we fought hard for Sulphur Dell because this is the birthplace of baseball [in Nashville]. This is where it should be, the neighborhood ballpark.

Reverend Maynard's Sulphur Dell sermons strike me now as hallow and conniving. He has every opportunity now to speak out against the Sounds' decision to exclude Sulphur Dell from the ballpark moniker. I doubt he will say a word against it.

The other thing that strikes me about Hale's observations is how the Mayor places the blame for not leveraging any money for Nashville out of the deal with First Tennessee on the council's vote in favor of the deal:

Mayor Karl Dean's spokeswoman, Bonna Johnson, tells Pith that was part of the deal "just like at LP Field and Bridgestone, and it was in the agreements approved by the Council."

This is not much more than a chicken-shit response from the Mayor's Office. They determined the perimeters and terms of the Sounds deal that was sent to council with the point that any change in terms was a "poison pill" that would destroy it. They set the condensed timeline for approval of the ballpark. They held one community meeting even as Metro Planners promised more than one. They whipped the legislation through the council. They ran the PR campaign from start to finish. The onus is only partly on the weakling council that could not muster a challenge on much of anything to save its life. The Mayor conveniently acts like a strong executive (which is the Metro form of government) when he wants to, but when the heat gets turned up he consistently refuses to take it. Hizzoner's style of governing is to take the credit when it suits him, but to pass the buck when the load starts getting heavy.

The council deserves it's share of responsibility in this stupidity, but make no mistake, the Mayor should assume the lion's share of the blame for any money that could have been made from the naming rights but was lost.

Remember when Mayor Bill Purcell responded to the death of the last Sounds deal by demolishing part of their parking lot to expand a local park? I still marvel at the gumption of that. My sense is that, had he still been Mayor, he would have walked away from this deal with more revenues for public coffers (and even assurances about the Sulphur Dell name) than Karl Dean has.

In order to incorporate Sulphur Dell history, the ballpark architects have demolished its commemoratives

If memory serves, what was pitched to people about the section of state greenway that bordered the spot designated for a new Sulphur Dell ballpark was that it would be incorporated into the new facility. What I distinctly recall from the scant community meetings sponsored by Mayor Karl Dean and Council Member Erica Gilmore was that the greenways would remain intact, but their use by the public would be limited on baseball game days.

If any ballpark architects from Gobbell Hays and Populous ever mentioned demolishing the state greenway along with a water feature that commemorated the sulphur spring and creek that marked both the history and prehistory of an area that was the cradle of the city of Nashville, I missed it. But I discovered today that the greenway and fountain are gone.

June 2007: an attractive homage to the sulphur spring that once fed
French Lick Creek, whose course was commemorated with an adjoining greenway

April 2014: the spot where the water feature once stood,
now reduced to rubble and landfill left by the new ballpark/mixed-use project

Make no mistake. Nashville has a permissive track record of enabling developers to wipe its history clean in order to embrace growth. And builders rush in to reduce the historic and the prehistoric records to virtual moonscapes before building something else. Like some coursing need to wash itself clean of its own history, good or ill, Nashville hands development over to developers to largely tear down and build anew at will.

So, maybe I should not be surprised to see today that the fountain and greenway have met the same fate as demolished state parking lots and city roadways. The profit motive overruns any preservation mandate. There is no onus on the architects to acknowledge the significance of the sulphur spring for which their concept is named. It certainly won't come from this Mayor or this district's council member both of whom have ingratiated themselves to the real estate industry. Having been a Nashvillian for 25 years, nothing Metro allows surprises me anymore.

But what sticks with me now is that nobody bothered to be transparent about the demolition beforehand: not the architects, not the sponsoring council member, not the Mayor. I don't remember a word uttered about it. Hence, I wonder if what we are going to get--once something is built on top of the demolished debris, on top of the dust heap--is privatized infill rarely open to the public and forgetful of what was there before baseball or hipster urbanism were ever imagined in Nashville. Is the small corridor where there was once a greenway and a water feature going to be flipped to a sterilized, generic pass-through for people on the way to somewhere else? That would be a cynical re-write of local history.

Sulphur Dell area was once an important "production workshop" in a "major prehistoric metropolis"

One of the only external expectations that Mayor Karl Dean agreed to when it came to his fast-tracked construction of a new ballpark/mixed-use development at Sulphur Dell near Jefferson Street was an archeological survey of the site for sensitive historical artifacts before construction began.

Sulphur Dell is not just an important place in baseball and civil rights history. It is an important place in the history of Nashville's founding (Timothy Demonbreun's cabin was located nearby at Sulphur Spring Bottom). It is also an important place for in the history of ancient tribal cultures.

While a careful community-based planning process was a casualty of Hizzoner's rush to build and of the team owner's allergies to engaging the community townhall-style, we can be thankful that Mayor Dean at least felt compelled by something or someone to slow up enough to preserve some important finds:

Archaeologists made an important discovery over the weekend in the area that will become left field, including artifacts that could even hint at ancient human burials.

The state believes the artifacts could be 800 years old, and experts are excavating the area now.

In an email obtained by Channel 4 News an archaeologist working on the project says he found pottery, animal bone and pieces of ceramic vessels.

And he raises another issue, writing, "given the high artifact density, there is a heightened possibility of human burials."

There are revised details at the archeologists' Facebook page. Kevin E. Smith writes that in March they uncovered a "relatively intact land surface" representing what he believes to be a terrace that held "a giant prehistoric salt production workshop area" rather than a place for human burials:

The enormous saline spring located to the southwest of the [ballpark] project area was one of the largest gushing wells of mineral water in the interior south -- filling Lick Branch with a mineral resource valuable to both prehistoric and historic peoples until the branch was buried in a brick-lined conduit .... The vast majority of features exposed and investigated thus far reflect a large and overlapping series of fire pits -- almost all probably related to the evaporation of water from the adjacent branch to produce the valuable commodity of salt.

According to Mr. Smith Metro Nashville was under no legal obligation to allow this important study to proceed, and he digresses to gush about the new ballpark giving them this opportunity. Then again, most of the area was covered with surface parking lots and there is no reason--given the broadly acknowledged importance of the Sulphur Dell area to history and prehistory--that this study could not have occurred if and when these state lots gave way to anything else.

Mayor Karl Dean was under no legal obligation to allow this survey, but it should have been a moral imperative to be discreet in developing such an important place as "swampy" Sulphur Springs Bottoms. It was more than just good fortune. It was the right thing to do. As was including the local community in the planning process, which Mayor Dean failed to do.

Otherwise, this is exciting and important news for our end of Nashville. It should be a source of pride to local residents, thanks to the hard work of the archeologists. Check out their photos and further descriptions at the Facebook page.

While Nashville subsidizes a convention center for tourists it may end subsizing long-term care for its own elderly

Cities don’t have the expertise.

--Mayor Karl Dean's excuse for proposing to sell Metro-run

Bordeaux Long-Term Care to a private corporation

Taking care of tourists, selling out the elderly.

I do not know the history of public nursing home care in Nashville. I would not be surprised to learn that it grew out of the Depression-era New Deal or out of the civil rights revolutions of LBJ's Great Society. But I cannot say with certainty for now that I know those possibilities to be factual. [Note: see "Historical Update" added below].

I can say that when I started following a community-based organization here in Nashville in the early 1990s, Metro-run nursing homes were in existence. That organization, Tying Nashville Together, conducted public hearings with official's regarding Metro's nursing homes and even challenged Mayor Phil Bredesen to raise the pay of Metro's nursing home workers to help assure quality care for the elderly.

So, Metro has been about the business of operating nursing homes for some time now to my knowledge. Unless at least 3 administrations have been malfeasant--including Karl Dean's 2 terms in executive office--and they all hired assisted living staffs that were not qualified for the positions, then how can Mayor Dean now claim that our city has no expertise at running nursing homes? The city has a track record and institutional knowledge in the field. What exactly is he expressing to past residents and their families about the care they received from Metro Nashville's employees?

The context of Mayor Dean's quote is plain, according to the Tennessean. They are clear that, by selling, Nashville will join a list of other red-state cities to bail on public nursing home care, and in the process Nashville will save $10.5 million (maybe to help offset a more expensive new ballpark at Sulphur Dell?). The entire quote from Karl Dean then follows: "In this environment, city-operated facilities just aren’t competitive....Cities don’t have the expertise."

The Mayor's comments belie the Bordeaux facility's own introduction:

Bordeaux Long-Term Care...is a regional leader in the provision of intermediate and skilled healthcare, rehabilitation therapy and palliative care. We are committed to providing our residents with the highest quality healthcare in a comfortable and caring environment. With an impressive team of compassionate caregivers, the Bordeaux Long-Term Care staff is trained to provide a broad range of healthcare services and rehabilitative therapies while promoting creativity, innovation and clinical excellence.

Again, how can residents and their families at Bordeaux have faith in any of these words they might have read in the past when the Mayor himself insinuates that Metro does not exactly know what it is doing in assisting living treatment? What would the Mayor say about Bordeaux's authenticity when he claims a private company can serve residents better than they have? That Metro Nashville was never really genuine about the high quality of care provided to its own residents?

Besides Karl Dean poisoning his own well with the claim that the city's nursing care delivery cannot keep up with private companies, his logic is shot full of holes. Did the city have the expertise that tourism industry giants like Gaylord Entertainment have when it subsidized the building and maintenance of a new convention center and hotel? He did not think twice about Nashville competing with private companies for tourism dollars when he built and operated Music City Center, which serves actual Nashvillians measurably less directly than long-term facilities do.

Maybe it is just easier for Karl Dean to give up on elderly Nashvillians because they have a lot less disposable income than tourists and the tourism industry does. Lest you assume this is no big deal, just remember that governments, in privatizing their services, have screwed up service delivery: utilities, prisons, schools, the military, you name it. There is some kind of horror story involved in every effort to privatize that I am aware of. And the casualties are usually common folk.

I await further details on Hizzoner's latest privatization plan, but it looks despicable, even vicious, right now.




HISTORICAL UPDATE:

Bordeaux Long-Term Care, Metro Nashville's current 420-bed nursing home on 121 acres northwest of downtown, began in 1893 as the successor to the poor farm. It provided various medical services to residents as Bordeaux Hospital until 1967 when its focus became long-term care.

A few reflections for today's ceremonial groundbreaking for a new ballpark at Sulphur Dell

Leading off in the wrong direction: new ballpark's plate will face other way.

This evening Mayor Karl Dean is holding his soiree (today shutting down 4th Avenue and two state parking lots) to break ground on his new underwhelming ballpark for the Nashville Sounds. He has ordered infield dirt and home plate be set up on 4th, about a less than block away from where the new home plate will likely be. Fittingly, home plate is facing the wrong way. It is a metaphor for me on how this process has started on the wrong foot. Token, purely symbolic attempts were made to invite community buy-in. If this project starts going pear-shaped with cost overages or construction delays, Hizzoner and a few North Nashville council members are likely going to regret not getting more popular support before moving forward.

Instead, they have expressed garden variety meanness toward anyone with a critical question. Admittedly, it comes with the territory in politics. You ask questions about the Mayor's rapid bus plan, you get labeled as conservative and anti-mass-transit. You ask questions about the Mayor's Fairgrounds sell-off, you get labeled as anti-neighborhood and regressive. You ask questions about the Mayor's new convention center, you get accused of wanting to hold back growth in Nashville.

Likewise, you ask questions about the Mayor's ballpark and the process he undertook to make it happen in less than 6 months, and your love of baseball is questioned. (In some cases the invective is uglier). What is particularly troubling is when the meanness is expressed in emotional moments by your own council member, whose public comments seem to suggest that she only considers the emails of supporter of projects that she supports. It may be, as Erica Gilmore argues, "a strange kind of love of baseball" that insists that Metro government be accountable to constituents for its capital projects even when they involve the national pastime, but to question people's deeply held devotion to something when you cannot even seem to spell correctly the name of the ballpark whose history you claim to be celebrating in your new capital project smacks of hypocrisy. Questioning someone else's love of baseball or history when you don't seem to have a grasp on either yourself amounts to being the bad sport.

For her love of the game, I'd be interested to know whether CM Gilmore has put her deposit down on season tickets in order to financially support the new ballpark she claims will "revive" Jefferson Street.

Are you crying?
There's no crying in baseball!

That is merely one of the questions I have going into this afternoon's groundbreaking. They deserve answers, not more hyperbole. Has the Mayor done the work on examining the area for archaeologically sensitive sites? Has soil analysis been done to test for contamination? Where will any toxic soil be dumped? What is Mayor Dean doing to protect historic buildings nearby? What will we do about traffic and parking? What are contingency plans for future catastrophic floods? There are a host of other questions I have heard asked that have yet to receive answers. Rather than lashing out at people who ask questions like this, rather than impugning their motives the Mayor's Office and its minions in Friends of Sulphur Dell should offer clear answers. This is baseball. It concerns our neighborhoods. We deserve more than tempestuous politics.


UPDATE: The Associated Press in a story on today's event repeats a meme that a new ballpark will end the 50-year-old deterioration of Jefferson Street. It also makes a claim that I have never read before: that Sulphur Dell was demolished due to the construction of the interstate, which is a dozen or so blocks away from the old ballpark site.

Nashville Mayor Karl Dean and the Nashville Sounds baseball team are hosting a ceremonial groundbreaking for a new minor league ballpark that will return Nashville baseball to its historic home.

The new park in Sulphur Dell will be near the site of an old downtown ballpark that was demolished more than 40 years ago to make way for an interstate and redevelopment. Those changes cut off the historically black neighborhoods of North Nashville from downtown, helping to drive those neighborhoods into an economic slump.

Residents and officials hope the new ballpark will help revive North Nashville, especially the central business district on Jefferson Street.

It looks like whoever wrote this piece is drawing information from a December report which made the debatable claim that our community "never recovered" from demolition of Sulphur Dell and the construction of the interstate.

The Tennessee Tribune offered a contrasting point of view to the AP last year:

“The interstate was only the beginning of the problem,” said Janice Jones, a retired nurse who lived in North Nashville for 55 years. “These hooligans moved in and starting committing crimes. It used to be safe here 40 years ago. Black folks were supporting each other and businesses were thriving.”

Jones paused to collect herself. “Now they’re over here killing each other and abusing drugs. It’s ridiculous.” Kassir agrees. “We showed unity back then. We supported each other. But somewhere in the years after segregation and Civil Rights, we lost our way and turned on each other. This neighborhood hasn’t been the same since.”

Not everything on Jefferson Street has gone downhill. In 1994, an organization was formed by longtime Jefferson Street residents, business owners, homeowners and developers called Jefferson Street United Merchants Partnership to provide a jump-start to Jefferson Street.

I am sure that the Mayor's Office has no problem with the AP notion that a ballpark may save Jefferson Street neighborhoods after 50 years, thus making Karl Dean our superhero, but the facts and the truth seem to be more complex and nuanced. And the Mayor has not been attentive to North Nashville as a rule of his two terms.

As far as I can tell the folding of the previous minor league fanchise had more to do than the building of the interstate with the demolition of Sulphur Dell. And to claim that in 50 years Jefferson Street neighborhoods have done nothing but decline is blind to reality. The AP should get a grip and stop inventing news.

RIP, John Egerton

Nashville resident and author of southern culture, John Egerton has died according to local news reports. Mr. Egerton's civil rights writing touched on the history of Salemtown with his narrative to the film, A Child Shall Lead Them. In 2009, I started blogging on the history of desegregation at Salemtown's Fehr School with an interest in getting Metro to preserve and protect that historic building as a living civil rights museum. Nearly all of my information on Fehr came from John Egerton. I can say without a doubt that Mr. Egerton made preservation of the Fehr School building possible. Please join me in grateful remembrance of John Egerton.

A special anniversary in Salemtown history

On this day 56 years ago, 4 children desegregated Salemtown's Fehr School, braving the taunts and threats of segregationists and KKK members while walking a mob-gauntlet. There also were threats of bombing the building.

On this day 2 years ago, Historic Nashville, Inc. held a news conference on the steps of Fehr proclaiming it one of Nashville's most endangered buildings in need preservation.

Around that time we started a petition to save Fehr. That petition leveraged a historic landmark overlay for it and the Warner House building behind it; the overlay was passed by the Metro Council and signed by the Mayor nearly one year ago.

Today we remember the ones whose nerve made Fehr School a very special place in Salemtown history. We also rededicate ourselves to preserving that history so that Nashville never forgets.

Already protected, Salemtown's Fehr School now visibly commemorated

The Metro Historical Commission installed a commemorative plaque recently at historic Fehr School. I spent a lot of time and energy over the years trying to help leverage a preservation overlay to protect this living Civil Rights museum from demolition or substantial alteration, including using this blog for community awareness.

Seeing the new plaque for the first time today is like a nice little ribbon on the gift of preservation we had already enjoyed for some time. The school is a source of pride for this neighborhood.

RIP, Ernest Campbell, civil rights academic and long-time Germantown preservationist

I just learned that the former Vanderbilt sociologist who contributed so much to North End preservation died last Sunday at his Germantown home. This is sad news about a man who was a catalyst in our community, a professor who cut a figure in US civil rights history:

While at UNC, the Campbells welcomed the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to their home when the civil rights leader visited Chapel Hill. Campbell studied the educational aspirations of white and black students in North Carolina in the early 1960s and received a call from the U.S. Office of Education asking him to serve as co-director of a project resulting from a mandate in the U.S. Civil Rights Act of 1964 to study the effects of discrimination on race, sex and religion.

The scholars focused on education achievement and race, and the resulting large-scale study of nearly 800,000 students documented huge differences in test scores and achievement by race. The research additionally documented that the Southern region lagged significantly behind the rest of the nation in terms of education, especially in regard to race. The resulting study was dubbed the “Coleman Report” after its principal author, James S. Coleman, and was published in 1966.

Germantown has changed drastically in the decades since Ernest and Berdelle Campbell launched the preservation initiatives there. Those of us who live around them enjoy the fruits of their legacy, and rest assured that some here will not fail to recall their contributions to and influence in North Nashville.

Thank you, Ernest, and goodbye.

Further evidence of Mayor Karl Dean's benign neglect of North Nashville

Last spring we learned of the plan to move The National Museum of African American Music away from its logical and spiritual home on Jefferson Street and Rosa Parks Boulevard to the old Nashville Convention Center. The failure of NMAAM organizers to leverage funds was blamed.

Now comes news that Mayor Dean is including NMAAM in his call for developers for the culturally neutral convention center.

Was Karl Dean behind this move--ill-fated for our North Nashville neighborhoods--all along? We know CM Jerry Maynard, who often follows Hizzoner like a colt behind its mare, was enthusiastic about moving what could have been a catalyst for smart growth to Downtown. So, I'll wager that this plan was hatched in the Mayor's Office, which no doubt views the important Jeff St. intersection more as turf for fast food, gas pumps and predatory lenders than positive, community-oriented institutions.