Whether you live in Nashville, have visited Nashville or just watch the show Nashville, you know a lot has changed from how it used to be perceived. A few years back, The New York Times named Nashville the “It City” and its been all bachelorette parties and senseless traffic jams ever since. But if you step back from the bright lights and Honky Tonks of Broadway and push past the gang of drunken bachelorettes on 2nd , then you’ll see that Nashville isn’t “it” for everyone.
Just two miles from all that excitement is Germantown, a neighborhood with million dollar properties, fine dining options and a brand spanking new minor league baseball stadium. It’s great, I love it, hell I live there *in a rent controlled loft, I don’t got it like that* but it also has something else, gentrification. When I first came to Tennessee State University, I would have never dreamed of living off of Jefferson Street. We didn’t know this neighborhood to be Germantown; it was just houses near the hood Kroger next to the projects. Oh but how it has changed. When I moved into my place four years ago I was still skeptical of my surroundings but I learned more about the area. As I would drive down the streets of North Nashville, Germantown and Salemtown and all these other seemingly made up neighborhoods *I know I’m not a native but I swear all of this was just plain Nashville until two years ago* I saw the community. The remaining natives of the neighborhood that were still holding on to what was theirs. Although some of the homes had seen better days you could see the pride put into others. The majority of those people are gone now though and most of the houses are too; replaced, instead, with two awkwardly tall, boxy, cookie cutter homes on one plot. You can find the same situation and replacement homes in East and West Nashville and their respective new neighborhood titles.
As I was coming home from work the other day I saw an artist working on a mural on the side of a building near my apartment. It is the face of a child staring right at you. The features are a combination of white and black with the hair seemingly wispy and blond on top and brown with tight curls on one small side. The eyes are very different as well. One eye is a light hazel brown while the other is black with hints of red surrounding it like it has been crying. The child with mixed nationality is not smiling as it gazes at you and underneath is the word HARMONY painted in gold. The day I saw this painting I laughed at the irony, and then I got a little mad. In order for harmony to exist you have to actually acknowledge and interact in a positive way with those that are different from you. The only semblance of harmony between the new residents and old is found in the once “hood Kroger” that was renovated last year and now includes a organic section and fresh produce. There was always produce but it just wasn’t always fresh, so thanks for that, but as far as I’m concerned that’s where the harmony stops. There are invisible barriers, as there have always been in this country, that surround certain areas. Right behind Kroger is Cheetham Place, a housing project that sits on Rosa Parks Blvd and faces an old warehouse turned luxury lofts. I guarantee you won’t find any new residents on the “wrong” side of Rosa Parks walking their dogs through the green space in Cheetham. They will however drive a block or two past Cheetham Place into another up and coming neighborhood to get a slice of pizza. There is plenty of harmony at Slim & Husky’s in the new Buchanan District thanks to three Nashville natives and TSU graduates *Go Big Blue!*. They are the exception to the rule though. There is a difference between trying to revitalize a community, like the guys at S&H have expressed desire to do, and gentrifying it. I see the Buchanan District as still having a chance for harmony and revitalization. I pray the homeowners in that neighborhood keep holding on to see how their community *and property value* continues to change. I hope those changes are beneficial to those residents and not just $8 a cup coffee shops and yoga studios.
When I look at the mural now, I’m not mad. It’s a very well done portrait and I have found more meaning. I have examined it enough and taken my own impression from it as you should do with art. To me, that child, both black and non black, represents the disenfranchised. The people who once were here living in harmony with each other before the developers came. He saw his world change in the blink of an eye. Both eyes are sad, there is no sign of happiness on his face, and the only thing missing is a question mark after the word HARMONY.
