Baronakim

So do I. I lived out on Bucker Road B.S. (before Saturn} when there were fewer than two dozen homes on the street. It is the intersecting street at the bottom of the circled area. Very happy to have moved further out. I had a huge garden. The house and garden were destroyed for the insane crappy subdivisions. Now I have a 50 acre slice of paradise.

Duplicating the destroyed facades is a piece of cake compared with cleaning and fully restoring damage to existing historic construction. The demolished Second Avenue fronts should be replicable but the real argument is to about using cheaper systems in "character" with the rest of the street. For conformation, ESa demolished the entire facade of a building at the other end of Second that had 1940s steel windows and such and rebuilt it with a convincing Victorian fascade. I agree that it is unnecessary to exactly rebuild what was lost but the result should be as close to the Victorian era brick fascades as possible. I think that anything "creative" like at Neuhoff would be an abomination on Second. Yes ,the AT&T tower is beautiful, but the buildings it superceded were neither beautiful nor historic.

I am doubtful that these buildings are if fact "way past saving". They are past saving IMO with the financial resources and abilities of the current owners more likely. Buildings in far worse plight were totally restored all over Europe after WW2 and I personally have rebuilt some on the Square in Columbia in about as bad a condition and elsewhere. The facades on First Avenue at the minimum should be preseserved intact and fully restored. It appears to me that the structural masonry common walls have been demolished back to a safe extent. If the entire two facades of Chief's can be saved, these buildings can be rebuilt profitably. One important criteria is that the interior floor levels may be totally gutted and rebuilt at the same floor level on adjacent buildings. If total rebuilding as you suggest is such a good solution, I would think the vacant parking lot up the street would have been rebuilt decades ago. No, IMO your total demolition suggestion would just result into another long tem vacant lot. My two cents.

No, been there before the shed was demolished. Built when Flying Saucer was new.

Ah. I well understand as I often feel the same way. However, I fail to appreciate your attitude somewhat in that you dis the "classical" value of the architecture at Belmont, but I recall little to nothing from you concening the architectural hodge-podge of the endless row of new dorms on West End Avenue. Allow me to pontificate. While I very much like the character of the Vanderbilt psuedohistoric wall against modernity (especialiy as I winced every time I passed the atrocious Carmicheal monstrosities, having worked for the firm that designed them at the time), the difference between Belmont and Vanderbilt seems apples and oranges. I must shake my head in your analysis of the the failure of ESa (as i was also employed there for decades) to fulfill "classical" Greek standards of design. I must point out that there was NOTHING in historical Greeck architecture approaching the scale, complexity or multiple uses of the many new educational structures at Belmont. I would further point out that many of the "failures" that you seem to put forward are architectural constraints which, if the ancient builders had access, would have been gleefully used in a heartbeat. For instance the lovely column spacing on Greek temples was not due to an excessive love of colonades, but rather that they lacked structural technology to allow fewer columns with wider spacing. They had no arches or vaulting per se and the span between columns was very limited therefore. You have not lived around here where so many of our churches and college buildings totally ignore Vignola's proportions in design...such terribly skinny architraves, boring low and stretched pediments, and especially columns so skinny as to appear as ludicrous as a person bereft of proper pants. From your emphasis of love for Greek Revival, I should perhaps wonder if you also object to Nashille's Parthenon being constructed of concrete rather than cararra marble and it's failure to be accurately painted in the garish colors which were univerally employed in the original. I recall one fervent critic, a silly preacher, who publicly remarked that the Parthenon was "no place" for a pagan idol of Athena. Such ignorange of history here is typical, I fear. Surely you must grant lattitude given the excellent classical design of the Fisher Center for Performing Arts also by ESa. Of course no such corresponding enclosed facilities for performance existed in Greece 2,500 years ago, so today we must wing it. Note that the scale of these buildings is more in keeping with the later Roman period where they had developed newer technologies such as architectural concrete employed by the Pantheon. Of course the "classical" Victorians ohhed and ahhed over a stark white and stripped down version of history of which we know today as very incorrect. IMO you are missing the point of the academic buildings at Belmont and perhaps even Vanderbilt. While none of them are 'architecturally correct" with their historic antecedents, they do present a magnificent bulwark exemplifying the importance of education in our city, historically and presently.

Yes, you are.

I have seen nothing terribly harsh here at all Luvemtall. Comments on this site are mostly useful analysis of potential useage and accesss and require discussion only to the extent required to determine whether projects may be viable or not. i admit my halfa**ed comment was not elegant, but no more so than one I would have made professionally in a office discussion in an architectural firm concerning proposals for development. From my view point, Urban Planet is relatively a serious discussion forum of architecture in our city and does not need more than occasional lighthearted posts for our members rather than throwing out a plethera of ideas like this was a fantasy football site. Other than serious posts do have the avenue of the Coffehouse available to throw out "might have been" or "wouldn't it be cool" posts. We are fortunate to have in our members a wealth of knowledge and experience in architecture, planning, information, zoning and goverment among which we have many levels of experience. We are certainally qualified as a group to recognize and to discuss, however shortly, concepts which would not be in the best interest of Nashville's growth. Certainly, the subject of the MLB expansion here has produced some rather far fetched , even all the way through preposterous, concepts. We do have our joke threads, for instance, the Blue Parrot, but zeal for wishful proposals going beyond known practical constraints like "supertalls" against FAA advisbilty, massive theme parks which lack adequate land or funding , and projects of dubious financial likelyhood should need no more than reasonable discussion when there is so much else physically happening all over the city. I am sure, if I wished to indulge in fantasy speculation, I could whip up a new stadium design, say to flatten Fort Negley hill or bulldoze the Parthenon in favor of a new stadium because the site presents adequate land. I apologize if any of my comments may have been taken as personal insult. However, it is well known that even in our group, we have encountered in the past, members who wish to make other than constructive or useful posts and criticisms; that is rightfully the right of our administrators to monitor as needed. My two cents. .

I absolutely would rather see 4 or 5 very tall towers, than a half a**ed shoehorn of a MLB Stadium squeezed on this site. There is also no decent road accesss for this site and to support stadium traffic either. There are too many buildings of historic character here to be razed for a stadium. I think it's an awful idea.

Spooky enough for Halloween. 2017 eclipse. If the placement had been slightly better, Nashville could be the ant-Sauron city.

Don't hold your breath!

While there were many attractive buildings downtown back then, from my observation, they were surrounded by a lot of cluttered junk. We did lose buildings that should have been retained but the emminent domain that wiped them out by blocks was ruthless in its execution. Those two hotels were important landmarks, but IMO not particulary great architecture like the gorgeous banks at 4th and Union or the Maxwell House. I disagree that we have lost so much as folks whine about, as a great core of the older buildings survive from ther river all the way to Rosa Parks. I miss the Sudekum tower visually most of all, but it's interioe was horrendous IMO to convert to residential and useless for any uses as it had in today's markets. I think Nashvilele has penty of surviving urban environment.

What the hell are those pathetic little boxes on the sidewalks??? WHAT A USELESS JOKE!

i remember the plaza too, but it was always pretty crappy. The "gardens" never had any worthwhile planting and unlike classical designs for such layouts it was just plain awful and unsymmetric. A competant plan would have laid it out centeresd on an axis with the Capitiol and with the main entrance to the War memorial Building. This was just a division of squares by extending the street grid. By the 60s, the stone walls were behind ugly bus stops, trash bins and benches plastered with nasty advertisements on the back rests.. It was all lawn, no nice landscaping at all. The plaza never saw tree one. IMO the whole thing was rather pathetically plain jane. The only good thing about it were the hotels arond it which except for the Hermitage are long gone.

I hope it has some street presence. Having the shops and such hidden behind that bleak street facade and only opening out on the lake was always a disaster for tenants as few folks knew they were back there. The concept IMO has always been a dismal failure.

How in hell can you serve food in the same space as a barbershop? The health department should be having a conniption!

There are two massive residential projects underway in Marshall County which I assume is a result of periphreal growth from the battery plant and other growth in Springhill. On US 431 adjacent to the elementry school is a 238 home project on 58 acres and what is apparently a much larger project on the south side of Hwy 50 where US 431 turns east. IMO this is a result of land prices in Maury County increases from the influx of folks moving in and Marshall is beginning to get spillover now. Maury is experiencing a jump in commercial growth with medical related projects and a new Justice Center also.

Then it would have been more interesting if they named it Sweeney Todd's keeping with the barber theme.

Ehh. Better than what it replaced but underwhelmingly underutilizes the commanding view of the core it could have utilized IMO.

Silly looking thing IMO. I'm not impresssed. Totally ignore wheelchair access too.

I proposed one back in the 1900s out by I-65 and Briley . Skyline hospital is on the site now. Here is the rendering from 1985.

ESa is designing some fabulous new buildings at Belmont, but it is starting to remind me of the Roman Forum. Imagine if Belmont got a football team. Could their new stadium look like the Flavian Ampitheatre perhaps?

Maybe they should be Nashville DemonBrewin's after Demonbruen.

This morning from ESa by Dana Adams Jennings

Don't forget the crappy Santa'sLand in Cherokee. . This is my preferred theme park in North North Carolina. What a ride!

The architects must have taken some inspiration from the Rock Block idea by TonyG and went further with it. As far as I think reading the preview list of probablable complaints, 90% fall into the catagory of hyper bullcrap. For one old designer, my main criticism is that the old recreated frontage should be not be a stage front with nothing behind the "old" looking facades right next to the street. If the theatre entry is to be the new main entry for the residential, it needs to be more accurately duplicated and absolutely recreated as the brilliantly lit portal to the original theater. This looks like a cheap cardboard copy IMO. As I have often complained about "historic preservation", real uses must be found for those properties that are saved. The fact that it has been over 20 years since Bookstar proves that the massive interior of the old theater has no future and really can't stay standing vacant. It is just a shame to resort to putting up a fake recreation (and an unconvincing one IMO) in it's place.