So far, it’s been a unique, and slightly tumultuous adventure for me in Nashville. I came here in 2021, landed in Pegram, (a rural suburbed Southwest of the city), moved to Brentwood 3 months later, only to fall gravely sick with Covid about 5 months after that. You know what they say–“making plans is a good way to make God laugh!”
After 2022 saw me return to Chicago to bring my lungs and physical health back to a reasonable level, I recently returned to Music City after securing an apartment in East Nashville via Zillow online
I was excited! Certainly Joe Biden’s inflation had turned rent prices up, but a two bedroom place with a washer dryer and hardwood floors was to be had on Greenwood Avenue, just off of Gallatin Pike. Zooming out from Lakewood, Illinois, with my 2009 Volkswagen Jetta and U-Haul trailer in tow, I banged out the trip in about 8 hours!
Unlocking the door on the place, an apartment in an old duplex that faces Greenwood Ave., I was immediately confronted by the harsh redolence of marijuana. Now, I’m a dude who is smoked his share of flower, but with these fairly compromised lungs, that was not going to work. Meanwhile, this apartment I was so amped about had the appearance of an old college pad– beaten up by a few leases–if you know what I mean. Ugh.
The space was perfect, with a second bedroom that would serve as a studio and workplace, nice oak floors, and a sweet front porch–but it was a mess. The walls were half painted, the blinds were bent and broken, and the floors were filthy. The bathroom was the size of a phone booth with a cracked-up shower space. I was pissed. I knew I was going to do a custom paint job on the joint, (as was my method of operation on new apartments), but the shape of the place was not acceptable.
Fast forward a month. The landlord turned out to be an awesome dude, (a touch over-extended on his properties), the neighbor stopped smoking weed in her adjoining apartment, and I broke my back–and almost my lungs–doing a two-coat paint job on three rooms. I scrubbed and polished the floors and filled the place with about $1,500 worth of stuff from Amazon. In the end, not bad!
I was back in Nashville!
But where was I in Nashville?
Well–East Nashville. Quite exactly, Gallatin Pike and Greenwood Avenue, just off the block that has that supercool mural of a young Steven Jobs and Bill Gates posing over the original Macintosh computer. Across the street, a Publix and a Starbucks. Plenty of popping eateries and condos within a half-mile each way. Hip, yeah?
Truth is, and I hope I don’t offend any E Nash natives (!), but East Nashville reminds me of Southeast Portland, circa 2009, in places, and Western Avenue in Chicago, circa anytime, in the last 50 years. That means the contemporary word of ‘gentrification’ applies throughout. The problem is, gentrification, in my book, means the neighborhood is about one-third still borderline ghettoish.
The bars on 10th and 11th are cool enough, (though I ain’t in Nashville to party), but Gallatin Pike is a nightmare of narrow lanes and jackass drivers. It looks like they designed this bloodline to downtown Nashville to fit about 5000 people, but I’d guess there’s now about five times that many here now.
Plenty of vintage shops and old liquor stores, fast food huts and urgent care facilities–and plenty of car accidents. In fact, If I had a dollar for all the fender jobs I’ve seen on Gallatin Pike since I’ve been back in Tennessee, I could buy y’all a round down on Broadway.
Now. Let’s be honest. I’d like to live down on Music Row, have my coffee each morning at Panera Bread on 21st, and take walks of the Vanderbilt campus. But, 2 grand for a one-bedroom is out of the price range for now. So, what I’m going to do is follow the advice of one President Abraham Lincoln when it come to East Nashville: “When you make a bad deal, hug it the tighter.”
In that vein, I’ve joined the YMCA (great facility and swimming pool!), learned to avoid Gallatin Pike as much as economically/physically possible, and just given the bathroom a new paint job–sage green.
Hello again, Music City!