Set amid the gentle hills and fertile farmlands of central Tennessee,
NASHVILLE attracts six million people each year a mixture of devoted
fans and the just plain curious to immerse themselves in country music .
They come to enjoy themselves, and the city makes sure that they do,
offering not just the relatively mainstream Country Music Hall of Fame
and Grand Ole Opry , but all the wonders of "Tacksville." To make the
most of this facet of Nashville, you need to abandon any idea of
detachment, and get out there among the nightspots and gift emporia,
joining the quest for souvenir T-shirts, Stetsons, rattlesnake belts and
photos of your favorite star.
However, there is a real city beneath the rhinestone glitter. Nashville
has been the leading settlement in middle Tennessee since Fort
Nashborough was established in 1779. State capital since 1843, it is now
the financial and insurance center of the mid-South, as well as a fast-growing
manufacturing base. Giant Nissan and Saturn motor plants have been
attracted to its immediate hinterland, and rapid growth since World War
II has transformed a once-compact city into a sprawling conurbation
stretching out in all directions along the undulating roads, here known
as pikes .
For all its blue-collar "Nash-Vegas" image, Nashville has maintained a
strong reputation for learning since planter times, and is home to
sixteen higher education establishments, including Vanderbilt University
and the renowned colleges of Fisk University and Meharry Medical School.
The city likes to see itself as the "Athens of the South" and,
endearingly, has built a replica of the Parthenon to bolster its claim.
Even at night, Nashville offers more than country music, with enough
going on to satisfy most tastes. It has also boosted its image by
attracting an NFL team (the Tennessee Oilers) and NHL side (the
Nashville Predators) here.
The other conspicuous element in Nashville's make-up is religion . There
are over seven hundred churches, more per capita than anywhere else in
the country. But what really earns it the tag of "Protestant Vatican" is
the proliferation of colleges for training preachers and missionaries,
church administrative offices and Bible-publishing plants.
The City
Downtown Nashville looks much like any other regional business center,
dominated by office blocks and parking lots, and dotted here and there
with major flagship structures like the gigantic Nashville Arena sports
and entertainment complex at Fifth Avenue and Broadway, and the Country
Music Hall of Fame at Fifth and Demonbreun streets. It's perfectly
possible to spend a busy day in Nashville without coming into contact
with country music. A good starting point is Riverfront Park at First
Street and Broadway, a thin stretch of grass and terracing dipping down
to the Cumberland River . A replica of the wooden Fort Nashborough (Tues-Sun
9am-5pm; free) stands on a promontory above the river as a monument to
the city's founders of 1779. A few blocks away, the worthy Tennessee
State Museum at 505 Deaderick St (Tues-Sat 10am-5pm, Sun 1-5pm; free) is
strongest on the Civil War, highlighting the hardships of the ill-clad,
ill-fed soldiers, of whom 23,000 out of 77,000 died at Shiloh alone.
Other displays in this huge space focus on frontier life and on black
Tennesseans, looking at slavery, Reconstruction, the founding of the Ku
Klux Klan and the civil rights movement.
Marking downtown's northern boundary at Sixth and Charlotte avenues, the
resplendent Tennessee State Capitol (Mon-Fri 9am-4pm; free), modeled on
an Ionic temple, looks out across the city from its hilltop perch. Early
in the twentieth century, this area was yet another "Hell's Half Acre,"
notorious for its drinking holes, gambling clubs, sex shows and dope
dens; it's considerably tamer now, housing hotels and offices.
At the 1897 Tennessee Centennial Exposition, Nashville's "Athens of the
South" exhibit featured a full-size wood-and-plaster replica of the
Parthenon, which proved so popular with Nashville residents that the
present permanent structure, in the middle of Centennial Park southwest
of downtown at West End and 25th avenues, was built in 1931. This
impressive edifice - familiar to moviegoers from the finale of Robert
Altman's not-always-flattering Nashville - is now home to Nashville's
premier art museum (Tues-Sat 9am-4.30pm; April-Sept also Sun
12.30-4.30pm; $3.50). The lower level contains American paintings; the
upper hall is dominated by a 42ft replica of Phidias's statue of Athena.
Just across West End Avenue, weather-beaten Gothic structures sit
alongside more modern utilitarian buildings on the campus of prestigious
Vanderbilt University . This bastion of conservatism was one of the very
few colleges to witness student demonstrations in support of US
involvement in Vietnam. Nearby Fisk University is one of the nation's
oldest black colleges, and on campus is the excellent Van Vechten
Gallery , at Jackson Street and D.B. Todd Boulevard (Tues-Fri 10am-5pm,
Sat & Sun 1-5pm; closed Sun in summer; donation). In addition to works
by Picasso, Cézanne and Renoir, and a wide array of pieces by Georgia
O'Keeffe, there are changing exhibits, many of them with an African-American
theme.
Of the many buildings erected by Nashville's antebellum elite, none was
more elaborate than the Belmont Mansion , a mile southeast of the
Parthenon at 1900 Belmont Blvd (June-Aug Mon-Sat 10am-4pm, Sun 1pm-4pm;
Sept-May Tues-Sat 10am-4pm; $7). This 36-room Italianate 1850 villa
looks out across ornamented gardens that once kept bears and a lake
stocked with alligators.
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