As part of my own March “use up that paid time off” Madness, I left work early two Fridays in a row (this time I actually made it out of the office by 1:00 p.m.) to have some fun with Les. We got a late lunch at our favorite Indian restaurant, Sitar (where I actually enjoy the non-buffet better than the buffet), and then went exploring in search of the old City Cemetery.
Les knew approximately where it was, but I had never even heard of it. We started just driving south on 4th Avenue, looking for signs of a park-like atmosphere among the industrial buildings. Suddenly, there it was! But unable to react quickly enough, we drove right by the entrance! We tried to circle the block, but ended up not being able to find a way around and found ourselves over by the Nashville Sounds stadium instead. In attempting to loop around another way, we noticed Fort Negley up on the hill. Surprised that we had never noticed it before and curious to see what it was about, we parked our car and got out and walked around.
The area seemed well-maintained and well-documented. Although it was virtually empty when we visited on this cold, gray day in March, I would imagine that it’s much more active during the summer months when droves of Civil War enthusiasts visit the South. At least there were a lot of parking spots.
From the top of the fort, we could look across the valley to the City Reservoir, yet another thing we had never noticed before, despite the fact that one of our favorite record stores – Grimey’s – sits right in its shadow. I always wondered what that “Reservoir Park” across the street from them was all about. A Nashville local landmarks page says: “Located at 1401 8th Avenue South and built between 1887 and 1889, the Reservoir is an elliptical masonry structure with a holding capacity of slightly more than 51 million gallons in two sections. In 1912, the southeast wall broke, pouring 25 million gallons toward the fair grounds. There was property damage, but no lives were lost. The gate house visible from nearby streets and highways contains the valves that control the flow of water from one side of the reservoir to the other.” You can’t get too close to it because it is surrounded by a high fence, but it was interesting to see it anyway.
Eventually, we did manage to make it back to the Nashville City Cemetery. Although it was colder and getting too late in the afternoon to really enjoy our time outside, we did a quick circuit around the area. It was kind of sad to see the state of disrepair that our oldest cemetery is currently in. A lot of headstones are broken and unreadable and the grounds seemed neglected. There were bullet holes in some of the windows and the fences around family plots were bent or missing entirely. It looked abandoned and uncared for. This is a shame considering how many famous early Nashvillians are buried there and what a part of our history this site represents. If you haven’t been there, I suggest you go and check it out before it gets any worse.
This Friday wasn’t as fun as the Friday before due to the colder weather and lack of sun, but we still stumbled upon three interesting things here in our fair city.
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