Nashville Bits and Pieces

[PaulChinetti]

I like the location of the science center. Gives something to a neighborhood that doesn't have anything else like that. 

A Civl War museum would be great in the old Greer spot, especially if it was truthful and didn't white wash what it was about. 

[Baronakim]

I posted these photos some time ago in "Old Nashville Treasures" and failed to  connect  them with one of the saddest events in Nashville's history .  These are down on the riverbanks between Victory Memorial and Woodland Street Bridges. The more I think of those abutement ruins, the more I realize that these are what little remains on the Trail of Tears and they deserve presevation on more than a local level. The tragedy of the Trail of Tears is a national level of history of the Cherokee and Creek crossing on their way to Kentucky and Missouri and into Oklahoma. Those poor native Americans surely must have crossed on this bridge as at the time it was the only bridge across the Cumberland. There really can't be much left of what was physically there along the Trail westward as it was barely out of the wilderness in 1830 and still exists in present day. I would think these stone piers perhaps have national historical importance then and scholars should be made aware of their existance. When the east bank gets a completed Greenway, I almost think the stonework there should almost be treated like the Wailing Wall in Jerusalum...well maybe not that far. But we can't allow it to be bulldozed either. I think the east pier should be treated as a major feature and memorial to victims of the Trail of Tears march.  i think it up to us who are aware of their hisorical significance and urge Metro to preserve them.  i really think that somehow these should be developed as landmarks for tourism.

 

Excellent news.  I have  received a message from Robbie Jones :

 

 "They have been fully documented by local, state, and federal government agencies and the bridge site has been already designated an official Trail of Tears site by the National Park Service. Historic Nashville helped fund the research several years ago, when I was president of Historic Nashville."

Edited February 12, 2021 by Baronakim
New data.

[nashvylle]

Wow @Baronakim thank you. Reach out to someone in the mayors office and I’m sure it will be salvaged and marked appropriately 

[smeagolsfree]

 

Old Spaghetti Factory will not reopen on 2nd. From WSMV:

 

Landlord terminates lease of Old Spaghetti Factory location in downtown Nashville | News | wsmv.com

[BnaBreaker]

1 hour ago, smeagolsfree said:

 

Old Spaghetti Factory will not reopen on 2nd. From WSMV:

 

Landlord terminates lease of Old Spaghetti Factory location in downtown Nashville | News | wsmv.com

Man... some of my earliest memories of downtown Nashville... hell... some of my earliest fleeting flashes of memories of an 'urban environment' involve trips with my family as a child to eat at Old Spaghetti Factory.  I'm sorry to see it go.

[titanhog]

1 hour ago, smeagolsfree said:

 

Old Spaghetti Factory will not reopen on 2nd. From WSMV:

 

Landlord terminates lease of Old Spaghetti Factory location in downtown Nashville | News | wsmv.com

That really stinks.  Why would you terminate a lease of a company that has been there 40 years and have a lease until 2035?  Sounds like the building owners decided they wanted a more “21st Century” lease ($$$)

[PaulChinetti]

That’s crap. Seems like lawyers are gonna get involved. 
 

Also,  “The downtown Nashville Old Spaghetti Factory suffered "detrimental building damage" after an RV exploded outside an AT&T transmission building in the area of Second Avenue North on Christmas Day.”

That’s one way to describe it channel 4. Sounds like an accident yeesh. 

[Nash_12South]

11 hours ago, titanhog said:

That really stinks.  Why would you terminate a lease of a company that has been there 40 years and have a lease until 2035?  Sounds like the building owners decided they wanted a more “21st Century” lease ($$$)

What I wonder is, how did they get a lease until 2035? Most leases run 10 years max. It must have been negotiated when 2nd was hard on its luck. I'm really sad about it, because I took a lot of out of town family there, many years ( a couple of decades) ago, but I'm not sure the concept is a good one in 2021.

[markhollin]

 Jan Freitag, who runs hospitality analytics at data firm CoStar Group, says there’s reason for hope in the hotel business — at least in Nashville.

More at NBJ here:

https://www.bizjournals.com/nashville/news/2021/02/18/jan-freitag-nashville-hotels-2021.html

[smeagolsfree]

An interesting read from REBusiness Online. General Contractors Look Forward to Possible ‘Tsunami of Projects’ as Backlog Dissipates

 

[Flatrock]

Wasn't sure where to post this, so I'll just park it here. With the epic fail of the Texas power grid, there HAS TO BE discussions going on now within Oracle, Tesla, and many other corporate entities, as to what this means for them. Technology-based enterprise kinda needs a dependable grid, much like you and I need air. For those corporate tech and manufacturing entities with plans to relo to Texas, or expand their footprint in Texas, I cannot help but think this last week is now prominent in their decision tree.  I also suspect that this opens up significant opportunity for Nashville, and Tennessee in general - to redirect some of that investment (here). As the Texas state govt maintains its position around infrastructure, and doubles down on policy.... Tennessee has a keen opportunity, IMO.

[MLBrumby]

Good point... NASHVILLE... Like Austin, but with power!

[Flatrock]

6 minutes ago, MLBrumby said:

Good point... NASHVILLE... Like Austin, but with power!

I think Bob Rolfe over at TDEC needs to talk with you about a high level branding position within the State. "Like Austin, but with power!" has legs....

[dragonfly]

Since I lived through this receding disaster, how about this take: "Like Austin, but without dependence on undependable and fashionable power schemes."

[smeagolsfree]

Texas is the only state I think not regulated under the federal power grid. The one thing TN has going for it is TVA. It has helped with  industry relocation in the entire TN Valley since before WW II.

Climate change is real, no matter what people say or do. Now are we to blame? Partially, probably, but the weather extremes are going to get even more dramatic, IMO. I do think  a lot of this is a natural trend accelerated by the burning of fossil fuels over the past 200 years beginning with the large scale coal mining in the 1830's.

I think Texas will continue to have issues as the population grows. It is about to start having growing pains like California has had because of the number of people moving there. FYI, Texas is going to gain 3 electoral votes next time around because of the population shift. The losses are coming primarily from the rust belt states. 

 

[BnaBreaker]

2 hours ago, dragonfly said:

Since I lived through this receding disaster, how about this take: "Like Austin, but without dependence on undependable and fashionable power schemes."

Texas only gets a quarter of it's power overall through renewables (wind & solar) so it seems kind of odd to blame the issue on that.   It seems to me that the primary reason that Texas exclusively experienced such severe issues is because, as Ron pointed out, it is the only state that has it's own power grid and doesn't share with surrounding states.  

[billgregg]

54 minutes ago, BnaBreaker said:

3 hours ago, dragonfly said:

Since I lived through this receding disaster, how about this take: "Like Austin, but without dependence on undependable and fashionable power schemes."

Texas only gets a quarter of it's power overall through renewables (wind & solar) so it seems kind of odd to blame the issue on that.   It seems to me that the primary reason that Texas exclusively experienced such severe issues is because, as Ron pointed out, it is the only state that has it's own power grid and doesn't share with surrounding states.  

Their current wind infrastructure can provide up to 20 to 25% (I've seen both figures) of their power needs, but ERCOT's plan for the winter was to rely on the wind turbines for just 7%. I am not an electrical engineer (or any kind of engineer), but losing some fraction of 7% of your generating capacity doesn't seem like it would take down a well-run system.

Properly winterized wind turbines run all winter in places like Scandinavia and Siberia. If some of Texas's wind turbines failed, they need to study what other states and countries do to make theirs reliable. Then there are all those reports of frozen natural gas wells and pipelines that don't jibe with the wind-power-did-it theory.

This same problem (severe winter weather leading to rolling blackouts) occurred in December 1989 and February 2011. The 2011 incident was bad enough that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission studied it and issued a report, which you can read online. In it they cite lack of winterization of the energy infrastructure as a primary cause and made recommendations along those lines. Apparently ERCOT and the Public Utility Commission were unwilling to mandate anything that might inconvenience the utilities or cause energy prices to go up, so the recommendations were passed on as guidelines and not much was done. Now blackouts have occurred again.

Edited February 20, 2021 by billgregg55

[titanhog]

I think it’s similar to Downtown Nashville with the big flood.  We have a plan to place a wall along the river to keep major flooding from hitting downtown again…but we somehow convince ourselves it only happens every 500 years…so what’s the use?  I think Texas is doing the same thing with winterizing their electrical grid.  In other words…they’re not prepared for the worst-case scenario.

[billgregg]

5 minutes ago, titanhog said:

I think it’s similar to Downtown Nashville with the big flood.  We have a plan to place a wall along the river to keep major flooding from hitting downtown again…but we somehow convince ourselves it only happens every 500 years…so what’s the use?  I think Texas is doing the same thing with winterizing their electrical grid.  In other words…they’re not prepared for the worst-case scenario.

I was thinking the same thing...that our occasional flooding and reluctance to spend on a flood wall is a rough parallel.

[MLBrumby]

In that same vein, I think a diversion canal should be looked into somewhere between Nissan stadium and I-24, even if it is an underground culvert, it should have flood gates and serve as a overflow for massive flooding. That is really low ground on the East bank. 

[titanhog]

1 hour ago, MLBrumby said:

In that same vein, I think a diversion canal should be looked into somewhere between Nissan stadium and I-24, even if it is an underground culvert, it should have flood gates and serve as a overflow for massive flooding. That is really low ground on the East bank. 

Or build something like the San Antonio River Walk and use it as “overflow” 

[smeagolsfree]

Not to mention Austin is sitting atop a volcano!!!!!

[KJHburg]

On 2/21/2021 at 8:37 AM, smeagolsfree said:

Not to mention Austin is sitting atop a volcano!!!!!

Hmm,  no that would be Seattle which is sitting next to Mt Rainer than could blow anyday. 

to quote this article 

Mount Rainier Volcano – Basic Planet

"The Most Dangerous Volcano in the mainland US"

[jmtunafish]

23 minutes ago, KJHburg said:

Hmm,  no that would be Seattle which is sitting next to Mt Rainer than could blow anyday. 

to quote this article 

Mount Rainier Volcano – Basic Planet

"The Most Dangerous Volcano in the mainland US"

Hmm, yes, there's a volcano just a few miles from Austin and a stone's throw from the Austin airport.  An extinct volcano.  But a volcano nonetheless.

https://texashillcountry.com/pilot-knob-largest-extinct-volcano-remaining-in-central-texas/

[donNdonelson2]

8 minutes ago, jmtunafish said:

Hmm, yes, there's a volcano just a few miles from Austin and a stone's throw from the Austin airport.  An extinct volcano.  But a volcano nonetheless.

https://texashillcountry.com/pilot-knob-largest-extinct-volcano-remaining-in-central-texas/

Life in Nashville has potential for disaster as well. You never know when Mount Juliet might erupt!