6 minute read
BY STEPHEN ELLIOTT
using bold color palettes for their shutters, including aqua, yellow and purple. One home, near the intersection with 13th, has a very verisimilitudinous dog sculpture on its porch (and in the middle of the uncanny valley).
Hadley is (or was) also the address of many of the neighborhood’s churches and other centers of civic life. Spanning the blocks between 11th and 13th and out a few more east and west, there’s Methodist, Baptist and Church of Christ churches, a Masonic lodge (with the usual windowless facade and imposing brick structure), a park and a public library. Across from the Methodist church is a large vacant field, unusual enough in Nashville. It’s obviously been graded at some point in the past, hinting at the former presence of a road or building.
For 50 years or so, Old Hickory Elementary School was here. DuPont gave the land to Davidson County with the caveat that if it ceased being a school, the industrial conglomerate could buy it back for $1 — which, it so happens, it did in the early 1970s. It then sold the land to the Old Hickory Utility District, which itself sold it to the church in 1976. Neither school, DuPont nor even the OHUD still exists.
There’s a community garden nearby, and though the distinctive tendrils of squash and okra plants are present (as well as a failed effort at corn), this one, unlike many others, is almost exclusively a province of flowers. There are both domesticated and wild ones, popping color into the predictably hazy August morning.
The library, built in 1937, looks like it could survive anything (though, of course, it is closed because of COVID-19), built with tough brick and metal and including a narrow chimney on the facade facing 11th. The houses grow in size as 11th rolls toward the river. The lots start to seem smaller, though perhaps it’s a trick of the eye. Styles still repeat: Barn-mimicking three-story homes are next to others with idiosyncrasies including extra-wide and extra-long diagonal eaves and windows that are seemingly between floors. The streets are wider here too — but not the sidewalk — and the trees seem to enjoy the extra space. Porch-sitting must be a prime pastime in the Village. Nearly every home has an abundance of patio furniture and other accoutrements indicating that these folks love spending time on their porches: little gardens, yard art, drinks carts and so forth.
When 11th abuts Riverside Road, the change is obvious. The first home in sight has at least 17 windows facing the street. Who knows how many are in the back, offering what are no doubt stunning views of Old
Hickory Lake below? Even the houses on the side of the street opposite the lake have covetous vistas, often with upper floors reaching above the trees to offer look-sees at the water. Across from one such home — painted yellow and with poofy hydrangeas so close in hue it appears they were colormatched at a paint store — either serendipitously the trees did not grow so as to block the view or the homeowners took the time to hack out the brush themselves. Thus these homes have a view of the lake and Hendersonville, a mere half-mile away as the Canada goose flies. Or the blue heron, which flapped its big wings in flight as we walked.
At 14th Street, one house — more the middle-manager size — sits catty-corner and markedly close to the street and to its neighbors. Even in pre-World War II Nashville, someone was always trying to get just one more house on a lot. Again, the porches draw the eye: wrapping around three sides of the home, many with slowly whirring ceiling fans fighting the eternal battle against late summer. Windows of sunlight through the trees (almost exclusively deciduous but for the occasional red juniper, which, as any Wilson Countian knows, will grow damn near anywhere) allow for backyard gardens.
SPECIAL TREATMENT
In a special session, lawmakers make it a felony to camp on state property — but don’t address unemployment or schools BY STEPHEN ELLIOTT
Aspecial session of the Tennessee General Assembly concluded last week after three days. The session kicked off a century after the same body made Tennessee the final state needed to ratify the 19th Amendment. Absent from the latest agenda were attempts to bolster the state’s COVID-19 contact-tracing efforts, under-siege unemployment insurance infrastructure or school readiness.
Instead, lawmakers passed bills granting coronavirus-related liability protections to businesses, increasing penalties for vandalism and camping on state property
A creeping vine from one has left a ripening spaghetti squash nearly in the road.
Along 14th is a peaceful park called Rachel’s Walk — named for Mrs. Jackson, naturally. Where its parking lot is now was once a pool, built by community volunteers after World War I and improved by DuPont when the company came back in the 1920s. It was an inexpensive day’s entertainment for the neighborhood kids — the charge was between a dime and 15 cents — and photos show how crowded it would get in the summer. Now, the shade trees offer a similar respite from the heat, though far less thronged with excitable children.
The houses are smaller once again on Cleves heading south, but for whatever reason, the street has attracted a funkier breed. One home’s front yard features a giant metal chicken statue. Another’s porch is decorated with multicolored ceramic owl lights and a stained-glass cow. Another is bright-purple (a purple Jeep and purple car are parked behind). Cleves tees with a curving road known variously as 17th Street or Golf Club Lane, even though the road is less than 500 yards long. And despite the name of its adjoining street, the rather unkempt ball field warns that due to “Safety Concerns,” golfing is not permitted. The field, which was owned by the utility district from the 1950s until its dissolution when Metro Parks took it over, does not have a rear fence marking a home run — making it rather more like a cricket pitch. (With a little love, it would make a fine oval indeed.) It also tricks the eye into thinking the field has the dimensions of the famously canyonesque jewel boxes like the Polo Grounds or Chattanooga’s Engel Stadium. In fact, it’s just 313 to right, 335 to center and 303 down left.
A squint and it’s easy to see the park bustling with ball games again. The foul poles are still there, the cinder-block dugouts sturdy. “The people will come,” as they say in the old movie. And if anywhere still feels like a place where neighbors stream to the park to watch Little League, it’s Old Hickory Village. EMAIL EDITOR@NASHVILLESCENE.COM
related to recent Capitol protests, and establishing a framework for the delivery of telehealth services.
Republican supporters of the protest bill took pains to argue that the measure did nothing to restrict the rights of peaceful protesters. But opponents — mostly Democrats — contended that the bill would have a chilling effect, particularly on the group who at the time had been camped outside the legislature for more than 60 days.
Shortly after the bill passed, the protesters packed up their gear and left the plaza, announcing their plans to seek a more “sustainable format” for their movement. The bill also makes it a crime to draw with chalk on government property other than sidewalks.
The version of the bill passed by the House and Senate on Wednesday was softened from some earlier iterations that included a provision giving the Tennessee attorney general the authority to prosecute cases when local district attorneys decide not to. Though the Senate initially passed a version that would have kept the camping provision a mis
