Love-Hate Mail
A fine Nashvillian
I just read Lyda Phillips' article and was moved to respond ("Our City in Ruins," Dec. 3). I am a local roofing contractor and have been on or around many of the buildings highlighted in the article. While I am very excited about the new convention center, which is proposed to have one of the largest "green" roofs in the country, I am very concerned about our lack of respect for the past. Why can't we honor our history while stepping into the future? I believe it is up to us as a community to change the attitudes and laws concerning historic structures. We all must get involved!
With that being said, I am willing to donate my company's time and resources to help stabilize any of the roofs mentioned in your story. I know this is not the answer but maybe it's a start. Thanks for moving me!
Please forward this letter to the appropriate people. I will also move forward in contacting them on my own.
Houston Herbert
R.D. Herbert and Sons Co.
Nashville
History lessons
I enjoyed your article immensely on the historic sites in Nashville that are endangered ("Our City in Ruins," Dec. 3).
Coming from the Mississippi Gulf Coast after Katrina, and growing up in "Hurricane Alley," I can identify with the loss of beautiful and historic buildings. Almost all of the old buildings that I remember from my childhood are gone. It leaves one with an eerie feeling of lost childhood memories, never to be physically enjoyed again. Those gorgeous buildings are truly the "ghosts of eras passed."
But their destruction was by Mother Nature, not by zoning boards, neglect or by needless demolition. Nashville needs to cherish its history, preserve our marvelous examples of architecture and protect these priceless memories of eras gone by. Once they are gone, it's forever...only to be visited in your memories.
As a newcomer to Nashville, I tried to absorb as much history as possible. The coffee-table book Nashville, Then and Now was most fascinating, and I visited all of the locations listed. It was wonderful to let your imagination go wild, and envision what life and the historic locations themselves were like in the past.
I hope that I am not alone in requesting this, but I would appreciate a map outlining the locations of the endangered buildings, for viewings and visitations. Perhaps it could be added in a future publication.
Thank you for this well-written article, and your caring about the history, and memories, of Nashville.
Mike Chapman
Goodlettsville
S.O.S.: Save our sites
I enjoyed your piece and couldn't agree more ("Our City in Ruins," Dec. 3). It has been going on for a few decades, true, but it just seems to get worse and worse as a) the structures get more rundown with age; b) many people who have moved here from other areas couldn't really care less; plus c) they think that Metro money should be spent making Nashville a "progressive city," and that hanging on to an archaic, culturally Southern past is backward. In addition, as you pointed out, outside developers smell money, and they have come here and leveled old structures to build condos and offices, etc. (that they can't fill).
And don't expect the carpetbagger Dean to do anything either.
Lon Tenison
Nashville
Casualties of war
The decades-long drug war has corrupted our criminal justice system ("Smoke Damage," Dec. 3). We have lost cherished legal traditions to the drug war...lost so gradually that few people have noticed.
The case of Bernie Ellis is but one of the results.
John Chase
Palm Harbor, Fla.
Woods: shooting off his mouth?
The headline states that four permit holders were accused of murder in this state ("Shot With Their Own Gun," Nov. 26). The article describes two murders, a threat and a wounding. Learn to count, dude.
Also, the Violence Policy Center declares they are "underreporting" 51 murders by private permit holders in the past two years because they had to rely on news reports? Huh?
Where else would they get their data? I dare say their reliability is about on a par with Mr. Woods'.
Charles Faulkner
Arrington
Devolving drivers
We moved here in '81 ("Driven to Distraction," Nov. 26). Cars were smaller, less idiots downtown, too. Cell phone use is worse than drinking and driving. Weaving all over the road, slowing, then speeding...sleeping through the green on a traffic light...rendering those behind you insane with rage, but only if they are paying attention.
Used to be those who appeared to be talking to themselves ended up in a funny farm for evaluation. Now all juicy personal details are spoken out loud for anyone to hear. I've even heard the person talking say, "Now keep this a secret"—like how can a secret be one if I can hear you tell it in detail?
Carol Bradley
Nashville
