Places

Best Place to See Eddie George off the Field: Eddie’s Room

So you got shut out of Adelphia Stadium last season and it’s not looking good for 2001? Well, haul yourself up out of your La-Z-Boy and head on down to Eddie’s Sports Grille on game day. Chances are, after he rips off another 100 yards on his way to the Football Hall of Fame, he’ll head over to his downtown restaurant to polish off an Eddie George #27 porterhouse steak, so named for buff Eddie’s uniform number and the weight of this particular cut of meat. Fans can keep an eye on Eddie through the glass walls of Eddie’s Room, a private retreat furnished with comfy sofas and chairs, video games, and a wealth of audio-video equipment where the superstar running back kicks back with his buds.

—K.S.W.

Best Place to Show Your Bebe and Assert Your Inner Bachelor: 6º

Do you wear anything larger than a size 6? Do you have a few gray hairs on your head? Are you a charter member of the old New Nashville, as defined so eloquently by Scene writer Matt Pulle in his recent cover story? If so, do not embarrass yourself by showing up at Nashville’s hottest new hipatorium past your bedtime. After-work cocktails or an early dinner are OK for the Modern Maturity set (which in the world of 6º is anyone over 35), but you’ll definitely want to get your rapidly aging butt out of there before the camera-ready New New Nashville set makes its splashy entrance. Thoughtful discourse optional, but cell phones, beepers, hair, and Bebe wear are a must.

—K.S.W.

Best Mid-Century Garage Longing to Be a Bar or Cafe: 2601 12th Ave. S.

Otherwise known to passers-by as George’s Transmissions, this ’40s-era auto shop is just crying out to be turned into an eating and/or drinking establishment. Its charming facade is largely (and somewhat miraculously) intact, including an oddly charismatic anthropomorphic socket wrench prominently adorning the front of the building. Property manager Wade Horton, at 479-6635, is handling rental inquiries. It’s hard to say exactly where George himself is these days, but the good money in the still rising 12 South area is in comestibles as opposed to combustibles.

— B.D.

Best Traffic-Beating Way Into Green Hills 16: Behind the Hampton Inn

On your way to the movies, you can score your own small, satisfying victory over Nashville’s increasing gridlock by turning into the drive beside the Hampton Inn (on the side facing the former Green Hills branch of the public library). Follow the zigzagging route behind the hotel, bear left, and you’ll emerge at the bottom level of the theater’s parking garage. Best of all, you’ll encounter nary another vehicle on the way...at least not until anyone else reads this.

—R.H.

Best Place to Get Mowed Down While Jaywalking: West End Avenue between Borders and Centennial Park

It can be a hair-raising experience trying to make it across these four lanes to the concrete island, not to mention the additional lanes of traffic flowing into West End from Elliston Place, where drivers are much more focused on merging with other cars than watching for a pedestrian. Walk-Bike Nashville is an organization dedicated to cleaning up downtown sidewalks and helping update Metro codes regarding pedestrian activity. Visit the Web site at www.walkbikenashville.org to learn how Nashvillians can work together to solve local pedestrian problems—like how to take a book from Borders across the street to read in the park without risking life and limb.

— C.U.

Best Place to Wreck Your Car: Hillsboro Road at Richard Jones and Abbott Martin

“Take a left at FUBAR, and if you escape with your life, you’re home-free.” That’s the sort of directional advice you’re likely to hear these days in Green Hills concerning a so-called intersection that’s Fouled Up Beyond All Recognition. Actually, this horrendous six-lane stretch is a masterpiece of perverse engineering that can be laid at city and state, public and private doorsteps. While north-south traffic grinds relentlessly along State Route 431 (i.e., Hillsboro Pike), east-siders on Richard Jones Road must compete with commercial patrons of Wild Oats Market, Grace’s Plaza, and Walgreen’s for dominance at one stoplight, while west-siders on Abbott Martin Road have to face off against Hillsboro Plaza’s patrons at another. Add to this mongrel mix a twice-a-day public-school zone, two worse-than-irrelevant pedestrian crosswalks, and several more sidewalk cutouts providing rogue vehicle access to the clotted traffic stream. Yessir, this is where clever motorists should be scheming to wreck their cars: Imagine how many responsible parties there may be to sue.

—M.K.S.

Best Slacker Street: Long Boulevard

Comprised largely of recent college grads, aging frat boys, and wannabe rock stars, Long Boulevard won’t exactly launch any hot new businesses. In fact, if you see anyone walking this West Nashville street before 10 a.m., call the police. It must be a thief, because the real residents are all still dozing. In an ideal world, Long Boulevard would be more like Belmont Boulevard—a cool, eclectic neighborhood of diligent homeowners and considerate renters. Instead, however, it’s a glorified frat row.