Old Nashville institutions are just waiting for the wrecking ball | Opinion
I recently drove the surface streets through Nashville’s Midtown neighborhood on a slate-gray winter day in my own emotion-neutral-zone, which was simple and functional – just going to get a haircut. But that was about to change.
I was stopped at a traffic light at the corner of 25th Avenue North about to turn onto Elliston Place – at the southeast corner of Centennial Park – having passed Nashville’s replica of the Parthenon with war memorials on a grand scale in sight. I saw a familiar face in a car trying to make a left-hand turn across traffic at this busy corner, and recognized my friend of more than 30 years, Mimi. She was pulling into the near-vacant parking lot for the Marshall Donnelly Funeral Home to make arrangements for her mother’s funeral after a long passage to death.
Once I turned left onto Elliston Place, my heart sank to see the remnants of the hallowed restaurant, Rotier’s in a pile of crushed rubble. I stopped and took a photo of the remains – an experience similar to the day I learned that they would not reopen after the pandemic. That’s the day, I taped a note to the door saying how wrong it seemed that we could never visit Rotier’s again and remembered that Evelyn Rotier was a gem of the first order.
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A gloomy, brisk and sad trip down Elliston
It was a short drive down Elliston Place to where I would park for my haircut appointment. On one side of the street, was the boarded up EXIT/IN, that well-worn, intimate venue where starting in the 70s, I had seen the likes of John Hartford, Leon Redbone, John Prine, the Mahavishnu Orchestra, Doc Watson, Vassar Clements, Richie Havens, and the list goes on, as it does in the memories of so many people.
Rather than announcing the upcoming acts, the sign simply read, “1971 – 2022” like a tombstone. On the other side of the street were the empty facades of The Gold Rush and Elder’s Bookstore. After the wrecking ball came, that’s all they saved – the façades. Well, it’s something.
It was a gloomy, brisk trip down Elliston Place that day as familiar buildings were coming down all over town, and towers of steel and glass rose into that winter sky.
As I drove west on Charlotte Pike toward to my office, I could see other places all along the way that I easily imagined were also waiting for the wrecking ball.
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It's important to pay attention to our past
I regret I didn’t make it a priority to drive around the block that day to at least give Mimi a hug so that she didn’t have to take those uneasy, silent steps all alone – though that’s probably exactly how she had planned that trip.
I also regret that I somehow never gave much thought to the possibility that these treasured landmarks that helped define our lives might someday come tumbling down and we would not even have the chance to say our thank-yous and goodbyes.
That day on Elliston Place reminded me of the importance of paying attention to the people and the places I value while they’re still around, and while we are all still waiting for the wrecking ball.
Mark Marshall moved to Nashville in 1977 from his home state of West Virginia. He works in private practice and as a career coach at UpRise Nashville. He’s also a member of The River Writers.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Old Nashville institutions are just waiting for the wrecking ball
