Some people might argue that it is the nature of the human mind to be curious and alert to its surroundings. Others might argue that it is the mind's nature to allow a person to become desensitized to them. Following this logic it is easy to understand how a person can live in the same place for their entire life and still not be able to describe to someone what one of the houses on the other side of the street looks like. Most people after wearing the same watch for years and looking at it dozens of times per day can't even describe it's face without looking at it! People are forever traveling all over their neighborhood, the country, or even all over the world. Whether you've been in a certain place for a moment or a lifetime you often fail to notice the things around you. I suppose what you remember is contingent upon how pertinent it is to your life and how interesting it is to you.

Throughout my life I have only lived in a few places. They include Long Island New York, upstate New York, and Paducah Kentucky. I've also spent a fair amount of time in Birmingham Alabama which is where my father lives. Currently I go to college here in Nashville. My family never traveled extensively, however, we did see most of the southern states and those on the Eastern seaboard. I've noticed that despite my fascination with various aspects of each place that I've been, the people living there rarely shared this interest. They would look at me with indifference or surprise when I told them about some building to be razed or a store going out of business. They simply never paid attention to what was going on in their own town. In Paducah, there was an old abandoned mansion that was over 150 years old in which one of the former mayors had once lived. When I would describe to people the white antebellum mansion that sat at the edge of the interstate and which they passed every day on their way to work, they either didn't remember it or didn't care. I could never understand this mindset. There are similar examples in every place that I've been. In downtown Birmingham there was the building where Martin Luther spoke yet there was no historical marker. Also, on Long Island, there is Pilgrim State Mental Institution, which was once one of the largest and most active insane asylums in the country. today it is standing largely vacant. I guess it could be merely a fact of life that people find thinking and appreciating the place that they live pointless and boring but I find it intriguing. Nashville is no exception. It's a surprisingly interesting city if you take a closer look. Unfortunately, it doesn't occur to most people to take this look. They continue to live in the same place for all different lengths of time but never stop to look and wonder. I can think of no good reason for this except that it is people's nature not to notice what they see every day. Whatever the case, I usually stop, look, and wonder. Nashville is a city where there is much to see if you simply open your eyes and your mind to it. I would like others to see some of what I see when I walk around Nashville.

When I came to Nashville, I wasn't expecting to be impressed. I had been to New York City, Pittsburgh, Atlanta, St. Louis, and Birmingham. Each of which have their own attributes which I found to be remarkable. Nashville's claim to fame is that it is the home of country music, which to me was never saying much. However, as I said, I find something interesting no matter where I am. So, in the interests of curiosity and to familiarize myself with my new home, I took a series of long walks downtown and in the surrounding areas. As I walked, I read the historic landmark plaques next to various points of interest. The first place that I came across was Union Station. From it's plaque, I learned that it had officially opened on October 9, 1900 and had since been renovated into a hotel. Out back was the old train shed that was left to ruin. Over the next several days, I looked at dozens of buildings from the street, taking note as I went of which ones I'd like to inspect more carefully at some later date. I went in whatever buildings I could. There were dozens of old buildings, especially by the river front. Mostly they had been stores, hotels, warehouses, and factories. Today they are mostly cheap bars, store-fronts with the upper levels vacant, or just uninhabited altogether. I enjoyed trying to guess what they had once been from the faded paint letters on the sides, from the architecture, and from the dirty outlines of letters that had once been mounted on the outside walls. There was one church that I was positive must have been a bank at one time because of the Greek architecture that is indicative of older banks. I learned later that it had always been a church.

Of course not all of the buildings in Nashville are old and abandoned. Among the buildings that I investigated were the Stouffer Hotel, the Holiday Inn Crown Plaza, the Customs House, The Capitol and of course the American General Insurance building. I like the Stouffer because it has over twenty-five floors and glass elevators on the outside to take you to each of them. I went there to see the view from the top and to cool off from the hot August heat. I went into the Holiday Inn for the same reasons except it has glass elevators on the inside looking down on an open center. At the top it has a round restaurant that turns slowly so that you can see the entire city. I went there even though I didn't have the required jacket and tie. Fortunately, I wasn't kicked out of there either. The view of the other buildings and mountains around Nashville was extraordinary. The hotel used to be a Hyatt Regency. The Customs House which now hold government offices, looks like a castle or St. Patrick's cathedral in New York. I couldn't look around very much because most of the offices that it contained were closed to the general public. From the outside alone it is a remarkable piece of architecture. The American General building and the Capitol are both at the edge of town and have spectacular views of the old factories on the outskirts of the city. At night the most noticeable is one of the buildings of the US Tobacco Co. which has a red sign saying, "Bruton Snuff." That factory, unlike most of the ones in that side of town is still functioning--you can smell the tobacco as you walk by. Among the factories that used to operate in Nashville in the late 1800's and early 1900's, are various paper mills and The Marathon Motor Car company. I'll bet that hardly anyone in Nashville knows that there was a car company here. The factory-which according to it's historic plaque stopped producing cars the same year that it started, had once caught the eye of Henry Ford. The owners, however, didn't want to allow Ford to buy an interest in the company. Apparently, that was a poor business decision since the company stopped producing cars or even parts a few years later.

Nashville is an impressive city full of surprises and points of interest to those who choose to see them. I've never been able to understand why people never have concern or interest in a structure, historic or otherwise, until it is about to be destroyed. Then, at that point, the public bands together to save it when by watching it stand there falling apart for years they have allowed it to come to that end. I'm not saying that people should necessarily care much about buildings that they never have occasion to use or visit. However, if they fail to take any interest they will soon find that their neighborhoods and homes will be in distress because they didn't notice their community's decline until it was too late. Whether or not a place is in trouble though, I think that people should view and appreciate their surroundings wherever they may be and whatever they may be doing. Nashville like many other places is a perfect city for such appreciation.