Nashville and Its Neighborhoods: Fanning the Flames of Place

Nashville Civic Design Center

Nashville and Its Neighborhoods: Fanning the Flames of Place Christine Kreyling

Vanderbilt University in East Nashville, before choosing cheaper land to the west.

EAST NASHVILLE

By the latter decades of the 19th century, the proliferation of industry on the East Bank made the atmosphere of East Nashville less pastoral. Between 1880 and the 1920s, Nashville was a leading market for hardwood, which was felled on the Cumberland Plateau and then floated on the river to the city. Many of the sawmills and furniture factories were on the East Bank, and the prevailing winds blew the noise and dirt to the east.

“Let’s cross the river.”

Jack Cawthon, community workshop participant

Then and Now The river’s course has shaped in East Nashville what Michael Fleenor describes, in his introduction to a book of historic images of the district, as “a somewhat separate identity from the city across the Cumberland River, of which it is a part.”1 This perception of separateness--which was real until 1880, when the city of Edgefield was annexed by Nashville--has at times posed problems for the area, but it has also engendered a feeling of community perhaps unmatched in any other part of Nashville.

As with most of Nashville outside the central city, the earliest land use was agricultural. On the first map of Nashville in 1786, what is now Edgefield was the plantation of James Shaw, who was granted the land for service in the Revolutionary War.2 Ferries were the original means of crossing the Cumberland, until the first bridge was constructed in 1823.

Cultivated land was gradually sold for large estates and “country homes.” Dr. John Shelby--whose name adorns park and street--built several of these villas, including “Fatherland” and “Boscobel.” The wealthy migrated east seeking cleaner air and more bucolic conditions than downtown provided. With the coming of the mule-drawn streetcar in 1872, estates and farms began to be subdivided into building lots along a traditional grid of streets. Bishop McTyeire first searched for a site for

East Nashville after the fire of 1916. (Photograph, 1916: Tennessee State Library & Archives)

On March 22, 1916, those same winds blew a fire that had started in the Seagraves Planing Mill into Edgefield, destroying 648 homes; one life was lost and 3,000 people were left homeless. The rubble-strewn empty lots remained through the building slump of World War I, accelerating the migration to newer suburbs opening in the West End.3 The eventual replacements were more modest cottages and bungalows. Other natural

1

E. Michael Fleenor, Images of America: East Nashville (Charleston, S.C.: Arcadia Publishing, 1998), 7.

2

History unless otherwise indicated from Historical Commission, Nashville: Conserving a Heritage, 27-28.

3

Doyle, Nashville in the New South, 87-92.

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disasters include a flood that covered the East Bank in the winter of 1926-27, and the tornado of 1933 which came to ground in East Nashville, cutting a path of destruction all the way to Inglewood.

But the calamities with the longest lasting impact were manmade: urban renewal and the interstate. Built in three stages in the 1940s and 50s, James A. Cayce Homes is, at 738 units, the city’s largest public housing project. Demolished for Cayce were the historic Shelby Williams mansion, which formed part of Boscobel College, and the “Fatherland” estate, as well as dozens of less grand structures. In their place appeared large housing blocks that turned away from the surrounding streets.

The impact was not merely architectural. Such a centralization of poverty bred a culture of crime and violence that leached into the adjacent neighborhoods of Edgefield and Boscobel Heights and beyond.

Urban renewal also delivered the demolition of many other homes and stores and their replacement with cheaper structures. The interstate blasted through the East Bank in the 1960s; its influence extended beyond the road’s right-of-way into nearby residential neighborhoods that became undesirable due to the noise and air pollution. Streets providing access to the interstate were widened. Rezoning enabled the break-up of larger homes into apartments. The percentage of owneroccupied housing declined and absentee landlords arrived.

Banks redlined the district with lending policies that restricted the renovation and rehab of the older homes.

In the 1970s, East Nashville began its long slow climb back to respectability. Urban pioneers renovated houses, formed activist neighborhood associations, and recruited individuals who would represent neighborhood interests--rather than those of the slumlords--in the Metro Council. Neighborhood leaders lobbied for down zoning from quadriplex to duplex maximum in residential areas and historic and conservation zoning overlays administered by the Metro Historic Zoning Commission to guide the preservation of the existing architecture. The Metro Development and Housing Agency offered low interest loans for facade renovations and established the Five Points Redevelopment District--its first outside downtown--to encourage commercial reinvestment. The location of the football stadium on the East Bank created new bonds between east and west.

When the tornado roared through in 1998, East Nashville was prepared to turn disaster to a great leap forward. In the aftermath, widespread community collaboration with a team of design professionals supplied by the American Institute of Architects produced the R/UDAT (Rural/Urban Design Assistance Team) Plan for East Nashville.4 This plan assessed the area’s strengths and weaknesses and created a vision for the future

Comparison figure grounds of the East Bank: Left: 1908: Largely a residential neighborhood with a small band of industry along the riverfront. Note how the street grid, while irregular, is fine-grained. Center: 2002: The entire residential neighborhood has been removed and the interstate creates a barrier between the East Bank and the neighborhoods in East Nashville. Note how the housing blocks to the east are of coarse grain and fail to address the remaining streets. Right: In the Plan of Nashville, a street network replaces the interstate and its massive right-of-way (see “Weaning Ourselves from the Highway: The Four-Step Program in the REGIONS chapter of the Plan of Nashville); Coliseum parking lot and riverfront industrial sites are redeveloped as mixed-use neighborhood. (Drawings, 2003: NCDC)

4

American Institute of Architects, R/UDAT: A Plan for East Nashville (1999).

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that led to the ReDiscover East district association and design guidelines for the MDHA redevelopment districts to control infill development.

Today East Nashville, one of the most economically and ethnically diverse districts in the city, is seeing increased reinvestment that builds on the footings of the past. The district is composed of many neighborhoods: Edgefield, Douglas Park, East End, Lockeland Springs, Maxwell, Eastwood, Rolling Acres, Rosebank and East Hill are those with active associations. The street system is a fine grained network, with alleys, sidewalks, on-street parking and good access to public transit. The area is dotted with churches, schools and community centers; Shelby Park and Bottoms, as well as smaller parks, provide recreation and more passive greenspace.

The Plan The district of East Nashville is inscribed on three sides by the Cumberland River. The northern edge is less easy to define-perhaps Douglas Avenue west of Gallatin Road and Cahal Avenue to the east, although Trinity Lane and McGavock Pike are also possible. The lack of an obvious edge to the north is due to the high degree of connectivity that blurs the boundary between East Nashville and Inglewood. This connectivity among neighborhoods is one of the district’s strengths.

The basic concept shaping the Plan for East Nashville extends the fine-grained network of blocks west and south to the river, while reinforcing neighborhood centers and the traditional urban character of the streets.

Map Showing the proposed changes in the Plan of Nashville. (Drawing, 2003: NCDC)

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Perspective view of the East Bank. (Drawing, 2004: ESA, Ken Henley)

The East Bank Neighborhood: Connecting to the Cumberland The East Bank of the Cumberland River is in a period of transition after more than 150 years of devotion to industry. The Coliseum football stadium replaced piles of sand and gravel and decrepit industrial sheds. A link in the greenway system hugs the river bank. The Shelby Bridge has reopened as a pedestrian and bicycle connection to downtown.

But the south section of the East Bank--extending to the entrance to Shelby Park--is still home to mounds of scrap metals and underutilized warehouses. During the community workshops, citizens stated that these industrial uses make access to the river and greenway difficult, and are not--in the 21st century--the highest and best use of land this close to down town. They expressed similar feelings about the vast parking lot around the Coliseum which, they pointed out, lies largely vacant most days of the year.

A 2002 study of the East Bank--a collaboration between the Nashville Civic Design Center and East Nashville residents-proposed growing the neighborhood fabric into this stillindustrial section, capitalizing on the views of the river and the bluffs to the west and healing the gap between greenway and park.5 The Plan of Nashville’s vision for the East Bank is based on this earlier study, but expands the field of action to include the stadium parking and the interstate right-of-way.

The Plan features a mixed-use urban village, with a large trian5

gular civic space at the center flanked by a neighborhood school and surrounded by mixed-use buildings. A roundabout solves the intersection of a series of streets with different alignments and emphasizes the importance of the civic triangle as the symbolic heart of the new neighborhood.

Along the riverfront, industry relocates to more appropriate sites. Hotels and apartment buildings define the edge of a large expanse of riverfront greenway with numerous connections into the neighborhood. Davidson Street is reconfigured as Cumberland Drive, a low speed pedestrian-and-bike-friendly street that echoes the course of the river and runs all the way from Shelby Park to Cumberland NE Park (See Northeast Nashville above).

In the parking lot around the stadium the historic street grid is restored and the blocks are filled with mixed-use buildings and structured parking wrapped with additional mixed-use space. When the interstate is converted to a boulevard (see below) this restored grid will be fully integrated into the traditional network of East Nashville streets.

The Hierarchy of Streets Principal Streets EAST BOULEVARD is the response to what the community workshops articulated as the district’s dominant problem: the interstate as barrier between East Nashville and all the territory to the west. The Plan replaces the interstate with a sur-

Nashville Civic Design Center, East Bank of the Cumberland River: Findings and Recommendations (2003 Nashville Civic Design Center • Urban Design / Policy Brief • Nashville and Its Inner Ring Neighborhoods • www.civicdesigncenter.org 4

face road whose capacity is designed for large volumes of traffic at moderate speeds and is integrated into the existing street system.

Roundabouts handle congestion at key intersections. Significant housing and retail of medium density can be programmed into the former interstate right-of-way. What was once a divider becomes a zipper, pulling new and old neighborhoods together. (For further Shelby Avenue vista towards downtown; note recent re-striping of street for oninformation on the street parking and bike lanes to calm trafinterstate transformafic. (Photograph, 2004: NCDC, Gary tion, see “Weaning Gaston) Ourselves from the Highway: The FourStep Program” in the REGIONS chapter of the Plan of Nashville.)

begun to explore strategies with Metro Public Works and the Tennessee Department of Transportation to restore an avenue configuration--modeled on the Civic Design Center’s East Bank study of 2002--to this segment of roadway.

WOODLAND STREET serves as the “main street” pulling together the Edgefield, East End and Lockeland Springs neighborhoods. The fabric lining the street is a mixture of traditional residential and commercial structures and newer, suburbansetback infill with parking out front--the result of urban renewal plans to widen the street to four lanes that were never implemented. Much of Woodland lies within the Metro Development and Housing Agency’s East Bank and Five Points Redevelopment Districts, both of which have design guidelines intended to restore the street’s traditional urbanism with new development that is sensitive to the residential scale of the adjacent neighborhoods.

LOCAL STREETS 10th STREET. During urban renewal, 10th Street was widened and the historic homes along it demolished, replaced with ranch houses and large apartment buildings that turned away from the street. The current four lanes are not needed to handle the volume of traffic; the street should therefore be nar-

MAIN STREET/GALLATIN ROAD is the traditional commuter and long distance route through East Nashville to downtown and thus has been given the “arterial treatment”: a wide road with capacious lanes for high speeds, and continuous commercial zoning at its edges.

Main Street lies within the Metro Development and Housing Agency’s “East Bank Redevelopment District,” which has design guidelines intended to gradually urbanize this street. The number of curb cuts are reduced, on street parking is introduced, larger sidewalks with planting strips are created and lighting is of a pedestrian scale. (See also “Taking the Low Road,” and “Reforming the Arterials,” in the REGIONS chapter, for additional information on reconfiguring Main Street/Gallatin Road).

SHELBY AVENUE became a major entrance from East Nashville into the central city with the construction of what was originally called the Sparkman Bridge in 1909. The street, which is the most direct route to Shelby Park, is primarily residential, with the occasional interruption for a store, gas station or church. At the request of the Public Spaces and Transportation Committee of ReDiscover East----the East Nashville district organization--Metro Public Works recently reduced the number of car lanes in the right-of-way, adding bike lanes and on-street parking. The effect has been slower traffic and a more pedestrian-friendly street.

West of Fifth Street, however, Shelby Avenue becomes car heaven and pedestrian hell: six lanes passing over the interstate before curving into the approach to the Gateway Bridge. This wide, high-speed thoroughfare is dangerous for walkers and bicyclists trying to access the Shelby Bridge from the east. The Urban Design Committee of ReDiscover East has recently

Shelby Avenue vista towards downtown; note recent re-striping of street for on-street parking and bike lanes to calm traffic. (Photograph, 2004: NCDC, Gary Gaston)

rowed by replacing the outer lanes with on-street parking and a planting strip. As the buildings along the street reach the end of their useful lives, they should be replaced with residential development more respectful of the traditional neighborhood character.

Neighborhood Centers Five Points’ history as East Nashville’s commercial center is reflected in its early twentieth century storefronts. Newer infill is of a more suburban character. The area is currently experiencing redevelopment, with restaurants and cafes, an art gallery

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Aerial view of James A. Cayce Homes. (Photograph, 2003: Metro Planning Department)

and garden store that are destinations for Nashvillians in general. Filling in the gaps with shops of good urban design and upper level residential units--as the design guidelines for the Metro Development and Housing Agency’s Five Points Redevelopment Plan prescribe--will complete the restoration of Five Points as the commercial centerpiece of the East Nashville community.

In addition to the centers described above, East Nashville is replete with what are called “commercial corners”: small stores occupying one of more corners of an intersection in what is otherwise residential fabric. Big box retail, chain stores and strip malls have made such structures less viable for basic retail. But many have found new life as restaurants, bakeries, music clubs, art galleries and boutiques. These corners illustrate how commercial and residential can be successfully integrated if the scale and design of each is compatible.

Civic Space One of the major recommendations to emerge from the posttornado R/UDAT study of East Nashville was for the creation of a central public space at the point where Main Street pivots to become Gallatin Road. This topographical high point, with splendid views of the downtown skyline, features several build-

ings of strong civic presence and dignity: East Carnegie Library, which dominates the site and is flanked by East Literature Magnet School, and the Woodland Presbyterian Church. The adjacency to Five Points, and the need to heal the great divide made by the width and fast traffic of Gallatin Road, also recommend this as the location of complementary public space that showcases East Nashville’s cultural life. Metro government has recently provided funds for the development of a landscape master plan for the East Civic Square.

Housing East Nashville housing stock is largely single-family detached homes of good urban design and represents the highest concentration of Victorian architecture in the city. Great strides have been made in the restoration and rehabilitation of this residential fabric. New infill, including some scattered site affordable housing, generally respects the architectural character of the district. Problem sites--and inadequate codes enforcement--persist, but are gradually being eliminated due to the rise in real estate values.

The biggest remaining housing challenge in East Nashville is found south of Shelby Avenue: James A. Cayce Homes, the larg-

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est public housing project in the city. Federal Hope VI grants have enabled the Metro Development and Housing Agency to replace similar public housing at several sites around Nashville with a less dense fabric of affordable and market rate residences. The size of Cayce, however, will require a much larger infusion of federal dollars. When they are secured, the site should be redeveloped with architecture of good urban design in a manner that reknits the traditional street network and takes advantage of river views from the hillcrests.

From The Plan of Nashville: Avenues to a Great City.

Vanderbilt University Press (Nashville) 2005.

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