The public face of the city. Not just personalities—celebrities, do-gooders, politicians, newscasters, activists, socialites—but also day-to-day matters such as neighborhoods, streets, services and buildings. Our record of what has made life in Nashville interesting (or livable) over the past year.
Best Beat Writer Covering Nonprofessional Sports: The City Paper’s Anthony Lane A beat writer is the serious sports fan’s indispensable link to a team’s day-to-day inner life and karma. Great beat writers file stories that sing with insider prose; they don’t just cover the game, they cover the team. With so much attention to the Titans and Predators, The Tennessean’s coverage of other local sports is often about as engaged as wire service copy. Enter the City Paper, where Anthony Lane has been showing us how it’s done in his coverage of Vanderbilt basketball this past winter. On the morning after a game, you can get a summary and box score in The Tennessean, but you have to pick up a City Paper for Lane’s sharp and informative account of what really happened and why.
—Bruce Barry
Best Literary Scandal: David Vise vs. Morgan Entrekin When Nashville native David Vise bought nearly 18,000 copies of his own book The Bureau and the Mole on Barnesandnoble.com, then promptly returned most of them, he drew nationwide scrutiny questioning his motives. Some thought Vise was trying to manipulate The New York Times best-seller list. To others, he was just an overeager, shameless self-promoter. Either way, Vise’s manic, online spree muddied his reputation and overshadowed the actual content of his book—a hastily assembled profile of FBI turncoat Robert Hanssen. (Judging by some of the book’s reviews, the distraction of the book-buying scrutiny might have been a good thing for Vise.) In any case, what gave the scandal even more spice was that the author’s own publisher and former Nashvillian, Morgan Entrekin, refused to offer his unequivocal support for Vise. As he told the Times, the author might have been “naive or overly optimistic about demand for his book.” In any case, if Vise decides to write another airport gift shop kind of book, you can bet it will probably be for another publisher.
—Matt Pulle
Best Semi-Retired Reporter We Wish Would Work at the Scene: Kirk Loggins
Talk about knowing where the bodies are buried. Loggins, a Tennessean reporter who retired two weeks ago as part of a company buyout offer, covered the city’s courts, lawyers and judges over the past quarter decade with such ability that the man himself became an institution. Until you’ve juggled the tasks of checking the chancery, circuit and general sessions courts dockets, plus covering particularly salient trials and trying to get busy defense attorneys on the phone, then writing as many as five stories on deadline—all in a day—you can’t fully appreciate the service Loggins performed for readers for so many years. (Once, years ago, when Kirk went on vacation, Tennessean editors gave me directions to the courthouse and asked me to do his job. They’re still laughing.) Kirk, if you’re not working on a crime novel or planning a trip around the world, please give us a call. We can’t pay you what you’re worth, but we can treat you like a king.
—Liz Murray Garrigan
Best TV Reporter Doing Drudge Work With a Smile: Lilla Marigza
At 3:30 a.m., when even the crickets are sleeping, WKRN-Channel 2 reporter Lilla Marigza is on her way to whatever fire, chemical spill, seeping sludge controversy, killer’s arrest or other calamity awaits. With one of the most thankless jobs in Nashville—as the station’s graveyard shift general assignment/catastrophe journalist for its 5 a.m. newscast—Marigza executes flawlessly, articulately reeling off the relevant details of sometimes not-so-relevant stories with the same professionalism as far more experienced journalists. Anyone who can show up in Maury County by 4 a.m.—in the rain—looking fit to attend a dinner party deserves a raise.
—Liz Murray Garrigan
Best Television Reporter Who Breaks News: Phil Williams WTVF-Channel 5’s investigative ace has a tendency to linger too long on his targets, but Phil Williams scoops his electronic and print colleagues nearly every time he graces the air. His exposé of indolent NES employees goofing on the job made for great television and was referenced by both the Scene and The Tennessean. And his latest scoop on Sheriff candidate Leo Waters unconscionable use of a rented car as a political donation might make this a closer race than anyone would have predicted. While Steve Irvin and other Stone Phillips wannabees tend to dominate the television medium, they’ll never report the kinds of stories that people talk about at the dinner table or over beers at Brown’s Diner. That’s Phil Williams’ job, and he does it well.
—Matt Pulle
Best Print Reporter Who Should be on TV: Larry Woody Local television lacks someone who can offer a mature, authoritative take on Nashville. Larry Woody is currently languishing at The Tennessean’s sports desk, where his duties include writing about car racing and little else. But during his guest appearances on Teddy Bart’s Roundtable he shows himself to be a wise and versatile commentator. A commonsense conservative with small-town values, Woody could do his own kind of “Street Talk” segment, covering everything from TennCare to Vandy football. There are many Nashvillians who don’t watch their evening news because they feel—rightly—that too many of the reporters don’t know anything about the city they’re covering. They’d watch Woody.
—Matt Pulle
Best Television Reporter We Miss: Larry Brinton WTVF-Channel 5’s Larry Brinton retired suddenly last year after suffering health problems, ending a career in print and television spanning most of the second half of the last century. There’s no one at any station who can replace him. We miss him very much.
—Henry Walker
Best Assignment Editor to Drink With: Michael Kilbane WSMV-Channel 4’s Michael Kilbane, to our knowledge, has never turned down a beer, picked up a tab or resisted an opportunity to gossip with sources, preferably inside a dank dive in Bellevue. A true city insider, the Channel 4 editor has a network of courthouse tipsters rivaled only by retired Channel 5 reporter Larry Brinton. Whether he’s telling crude jokes or just swapping rumors, Kilbane is never dull—the ideal late-night drinking buddy if only, just once, he’d reach for his wallet.
—Henry Walker
Best Small Town Newspaper Publisher: Clint Brewer Former Lebanon Democrat political reporter Clint Brewer bought The Mount Juliet News, a weekly paper, a year and a half ago. Since then, he’s broken one political story after another, many with statewide significance. In a recent one-on-one interview with U.S. Rep. Ed Bryant, Brewer was among the first to pin Bryant down about his plans to run for the U.S. Senate. On a regular basis, Brewer has better local political news than either the Democrat or The Tennessean. And what makes this even more remarkable is that Brewer, the paper’s co-owner and publisher, is also its star reporter.
—Henry Walker
Best Television Reporter Covering Cops: Andy Cordan WKRN-Channel 2 reporter Andy Cordan seems to genuinely like men and women in uniform. As a result, he often gets exclusive cop-fed stories long before anyone else. While other stations shamelessly pander to rural law enforcement types by offering stuffed animals, cookie jars and hats with station logos on the front, Cordan just talks to them in their own language. And they love him.
—Henry Walker
Best Impersonation of a Republican: Tim Chavez Implicitly acknowledging the newspaper’s liberal slant and lack of credibility among suburban Republicans, Tennessean publisher Craig Moon and popular columnist Tim Chavez came up with a new marketing scheme: Put Chavez in a coat and tie and pretend he’s a right-wing talk show host. With Moon’s backing, Chavez launched a weekly feature in which Chavez assumes the pose of a Hispanic Phil Valentine and prints standard, often ill-informed, right-wing pabulum along with call-in type responses from selected local conservatives. The Tennessean, which once proudly (and wrongly) boasted that the paper’s editorials had neither a liberal or conservative slant (the kind of talk that appeals to Gannett corporate bigwigs), is now probably the only Gannett paper in the country that dedicates an entire page, every week, for the rhetoric of one political party.
—Henry Walker
Best Architect: Edwin Keeble His finest building is vintage 1957. He died in 1979. But Edwin Keeble is still the best. When his L&C tower reared its streamlined profile over the stocky city that was then Nashville, Keeble went to the top of the heap as well. Still the most expressively sky’s-the-limit tower on the skyline, L&C’s smooth limestone walls and aluminum fins race corniceless to the clouds, possessing all the suavity that our later skyscrapers lack. But Keeble could do the polis in different voices. He skillfully designed many homes and churches in mannerist-historicist styles. His Hillsboro High is cool, lean modernism. In the 1930s, Keeble tried to establish an architecture school at Vanderbilt, but the university balked. Too bad for Vanderbilt. Too bad for us.
—Christine Kreyling
Best New Building: 2501 Fairfax Ave. The Country Music Hall of Fame and downtown library have had their kudos. The Frist is the best new-in-old thing to happen to Nashville architecture in a decade or two. But coming out of the ground is a modest structure that hits us where we live. Architects Lelia Gilchrist and Larry Woodson are showing Nashville how to bring modern design to a traditional neighborhood without violating either. In designing a home of their own, the couple have respected the profile and massing of the four-square that’s a staple of the streetcar suburb. They’ve placed their version, complete with front porch, on a corner lot across from Eakin School. The building form, which wraps around a courtyard, has a decidedly modern transparency courtesy of a carefully staged series of glass planes. The basic material is brick, painted white because, well, white is what modernists do. Currently on track for June occupation, this house proves that pseudo-historical is not the only option for infilling the historic ’hood.
—Christine Kreyling
Best Obscure Old Building: Saint Cecilia Motherhouse
One of the rare buildings begun in Nashville during the Civil War—leave it to those nuns!—the convent for the Dominican Sisters of Saint Cecilia rides the crest of the hill at the corner of Eighth Avenue and Clay Street. Constructed in four phases from 1862 to 1903, the building expresses the successive waves of Italianate and Romanesque revival styles of the latter 19th century. The original architect was H.M. Akeroyd, an associate of William Strickland who designed the library for Strickland’s Tennessee State Capitol. The limestone for the foundation and trim was quarried on the site. The very fine stained-glass windows of the chapel—depicting the stories of patron saints Cecilia and Dominic—are signed by F. X. Zettler, a master craftsman of the Royal Bavarian Institute in Munich. The sisters are to be congratulated for the minor alterations they’ve made to their house. Located off the beaten path of modern Nashville, a tour is a walk backward in time, and the grounds offer splendid views of the city.
—Christine Kreyling
Best Advice for Symphony Hall Designer David Schwarz: Respect the Site The Fourth Avenue firehall site for the Nashville Symphony’s new concert hall has its challenges. For starters, there’s some strong architecture down there. The arena is a big, edgy box; the Country Music Hall of Fame is also big and edgier still. Playing the game of dueling buildings could make for an architectural shouting match. The block also offers no opportunity for a back door; each side must be strong. Demonbreun is a major street which, when the thermal plant comes down, will provide a vista to the river if redevelopment is handled right. Third Avenue has human scale. The Shelby Bridge side will welcome pedestrians who’ve parked on the East Bank and hiked or shuttled over. And Fourth Avenue is the hall’s front door. Don’t put parking on the site; do a garage nearby. —Christine Kreyling
Best Use of the Doughnut in City Planning: Music Row Roundabout In urban planning, the doughnut phenomenon usually describes a beltway that cuts through neighborhoods and sucks the life out of what’s within. It’s refreshing that, at the entrance to Music Row, Metro has made a circle that calms traffic, applies a veneer of rationality to the intersection from hell, and provides infrastructure for a more urban life. When the roundabout opened in March 2001, doubters said that Parisians and Britons might be able to negotiate circular driving, but that red-blooded Nashvillians would be playing bumper cars on the piano keys. Instead, local drivers have taken to the roundabout with Continental insouciance. Now if we can just get some buildings to surround it.
—Christine Kreyling
Best New Place You’ll Wish You Bought A House: Germantown If you missed the boat on buying across the river and you’re still mourning those bungalows in Hillsboro Village you didn’t purchase way back when the price was right, get thee and thy loan officer over to Germantown. Yes, Virginia, there is life beyond the Farmers Market, and business is booming. Bite the bullet on a shotgun house or one of the many condos going up north of Nashville before the masses descend, the prices go through the roof and you’re left historic homeless and holding your weiner schnitzel.
—Danny Solomon
Best Expensive Eyesore: Trafalgar SquareWell, who would’ve guessed it? A multi-level British-themed monstrosity-turned-mega-money-pit couldn’t cut the royal mustard with the downtown crowd. Now there’s nowhere to go when you’re hankering for floors of Camelot, Piccadilly Circus and Spice Girl knock-off variety shows. And what do we have left after the smoke and mirrors have cleared? A faux stone castle with a big “For Lease” sign jutting up from our skyline beckoning all those would-be buyers of deserted dance clubs. God save the Queen, and while you’re at it, save big talkers with deep pockets and absolutely no common sense.
—Danny Solomon
Best Place That Got In The Way of a Parking Lot: IHOP More parking, less pancakes. That was the result when the pigs in the blankets over at Vanderbilt got all rooty tooty fresh and fruity and decided not to renew the lease on the great greaseteria that was the International House of Pancakes. In mourning the loss of the morning meeting place, a friend put it best, “Where’s a drag queen gonna go to get her egg on?”
—Danny Solomon
Best New B&B: Cat’s Pajamas East Nashville has a tradition of showing hospitality to pickers, singers and songwriters, the most notable example being Mom Upchurch’s old rooming house at 620 Boscobel St. In operation from the late ’40s to the late ’60s, the place served as a haven for, among others, such future stars as Faron Young, Carl Smith and Roger Miller. Now, just a few blocks over at 818 Woodland Street, there’s Cat’s Pajamas, a bed and breakfast run by Denise Jarvis, wife of singer-songwriter and sideman par excellence Duane Jarvis. Accommodations at their charming, two-story bungalow include flannel sheets, down comforters and breakfast of organic fruit, cage-free eggs and shade-grown coffee. There’s even parking for a touring van and trailer around back. Oh, and folks who don’t pick or sing are welcome too.
—Bill Friskics-Warren
Best Place to Feel Like You’ve Stepped Back in Time: Rattle ’N’ Snap in Columbia, Tenn. As summer approaches, the urge will inevitably surface—road trip! If you aren’t in the mood to make a cross-country trek, why not try a cross-county one? In Maury County is one of the Midstate’s best-kept secrets—Rattle ’N’ Snap. This restored antebellum mansion is open for tours and also has a gift shop. Stop and kick back for awhile on the porch and enjoy an old-fashioned Southern lunch, complete with chicken and dumplings, iced tea, and Tennessee’s own Jack Daniel’s chocolate pie (call ahead for reservations). Afterwards, take a stroll through the gardens and enjoy the country air. The place is a Tennessee treasure, where you can’t shake the feeling that you’ve traveled backward in time.
—Alice Fort
Best Most Inclusive Sunday Service: St. Augustine’s Episcopal A former street prostitute exchanges the peace, embracing one of the state’s most powerful lobbyists. An esteemed Vanderbilt philosophy professor shares a hymnal with a heavily tattooed and pierced musician. A tireless advocate for the homeless lifts the chalice to the lips of a renowned Nashville beauty and socialite. A little girl rolls her wheelchair down the aisle to receive the communion wafer from one of the city’s most prominent bankers. From “Yale to jail” is how the congregants of Saint Augustine’s Episcopal Chapel at Vanderbilt University describe their wildly diverse group that gathers for two Sunday services in its modest A-framed building. There are just nine rows of pews in the minimalist sanctuary, but it’s room enough to have planted the seeds for Magdalene, the program for recovering street prostitutes, and Lily’s Garden, the playground for children with disabilities. Those are just two of the projects created, developed and executed at St. A’s.
—Kay West
Best New Craze Nashville Needs: Community Gardening Can’t you just imagine those grown-up empty lots in North and East Nashville transforming from urban eyesores into growing fields for heirloom tomatoes and eggplant, ringed with fences of climbing morning glories? A few Nashville neighborhoods have started community gardens, but the city has yet to really figure into this growing movement that’s not only an obvious food producer, but is educational and motivational as well. Absentee landowners who exacerbate the city’s already hefty share of blight could surely be cajoled—or forced?—into temporary use of their earth as gardens. And there must be a way to incorporate such a concept at the city’s public housing projects. Meanwhile, anyone who can figure out the profit side of this, please call me.
—Liz Murray Garrigan
Best Way to Dispense of Your Recyclables and Household Junk: Nashville Recycling and Convenience Center
Who would have thought that dumping a bunch of useless crap could be so exciting? But there’s something truly novel about the new Recycling and Convenience Center on Dr. Richard Adams Drive, just off Trinity Lane—the first of its kind in Nashville and a model for other such centers around the city. The idea is that the disposal of any and all waste, whether recyclable or hazardous, should be centralized and accessible to citizens any day of the week. In other words, you can take care of all your dumping needs at once, without driving all over creation, and with able assistance from Metro employees. The Convenience Center allows any Davidson County citizen to unload an entire pickup truck full of trash for a mere five bucks. Even better, all services at the center are free on Saturdays and Sundays through the end of the month. So whether you’re wanting to get rid of toxic chemicals, construction waste or the beer cans from a Friday night wingding, this is the place to do it.
—Jonathan Marx
Best Place That Feels Like the U.N.:Farmers Market Actually, the Farmers Market doesn’t quite feel like the U.N.; you’re not likely to see any diplomats in Khan’s produce market, always the most bustling, crowded part of the place. But you will see people from practically every corner of the world, except maybe Greenland. Patrons and employees alike hail from such distant corners as Cambodia and Uzbekistan, Bosnia and Somalia. And they all mingle together, eyeing the produce and smiling at each other, sometimes broadly, sometimes shyly. If there are any cultural or national differences, they’re set aside—proof that plentiful food brings humanity together in the best possible way. And not only are the surroundings convivial and colorful, but the prices are astounding.
—Jonathan Marx
Best Way to Congest, Inflame, Infuriate...Simultaneously:Speed Humps The recent outbreak of humps, like pustules in the tarmac, may indeed be slowing traffic in their perverse, draconian way. They are also producing such unintended, unwelcome consequences as spontaneous detours into yards, horn-honking protests at all hours and dangerous delays of emergency vehicles. Worse yet, this sledgehammer approach to traffic calming overlooks subtler, safer alternatives like roundabouts and rumble strips. Human nature, thankfully, aspires to go with the flow; so the key to traffic is to channel forward momentum, not frustrate it. Humps are for chumps.
—Marc K. Stengel
Best Park Makeover: Fannie Mae Dees (a.k.a. Dragon) With the Warner parks and Radnor Lake inside the city, Nashville can boast of its copious park acreage. But good local parks in urban neighborhoods—the kind you walk or bike to on the spur of the moment when your kid says “let’s go to the park”—are lacking. Dragon Park, just south of Vanderbilt’s medical-industrial complex, has been such a place, but with functional flaws. Its minimal equipment was segregated into regional clusters, with swings on one end of the park, and that treacherous stone castle thing (that every parent figures will eventually yield an emergency room visit) on the other. The huge mosaic tile dragon is way cool, but more show piece than play piece. Then last year came Lily’s Garden: new play structures accessible to kids with physical disabilities. The neighborhood figured it would be a nifty addition, but the delightful surprise is how it has transformed the park as a whole. The colorful mix of structures and walkways weaves the park’s elements together into a kind of playtime coherence. And the verdict is in: The weekend park population seems to have jumped tenfold. Now if only Bob Bernstein would open an espresso cart....
—Bruce Barry
Best Place to Feel like a Kid Again: Jillian’s With its flashing lights, bells and sirens, the countless images of animated snowboarders, Indy cars and aliens, Jillian’s arcade is the closest adults can come to reliving a Friday night birthday party at the Brentwood Skate Center without actually revisiting the Brentwood Skate Center. Jillian’s, at Opry Mills, has more than 300 video games. Best of all, after 10 p.m. the real kids have to leave. So whichever game you championed in youth—air hockey, skee-ball or miniature basketball—Jillian’s invites you back to reclaim your title.
—Adam Deal
Best Place to Play Golden Tee:H Cue’sIn a town where neighborhood bars are as hard to come by as good drivers, H Cue’s acts as a beacon for people in search of a place to relax unseen in one of Nashville’s nooks. Dark and smoky, H Cue’s has all the feel of a dive bar, but all the amenities of the chic Hillsboro Village watering holes that surround it—including well-kept pool tables, a wide selection of imported and domestic beer on tap and perhaps the last socially accepted video game: Golden Tee. Henry Piarrot, the owner, always keeps the most recent edition of the game in his bar and has recently entered his machine in a contest that awards prizes for a hole in one (the grand prize: a 57-inch TV). Located at 1602 21st Ave. S., above Pizza Perfect, H Cue’s provides ambience, bartenders that remember your name and no wait on the first tee.
—Adam Deal
Best Party Promoters: Lodge Entertainment Anyone who has attended a Lodge Entertainment party knows why they have become the most anticipated parties of the year. Dick Nord and Taylor Shults have been perfecting the art of throwing a good party since high school. Their last party, Def Leprechaun on St. Patrick’s Day, was a huge success, drawing more than 1,500 people to the Greenhouse. Other Lodge events have included Funk-n-stein on Halloween, annual New Year’s bashes, ’70s parties and even limousine-escorted scavenger hunts. Besides throwing their own bashes, Nord and Shults and Taylor outsource their expertise. To find out about any upcoming Lodge events or to contact Dick and Taylor about a party of your own, visit their Web site at Lodgeentertainment.com or call their offices at 269-0090.
—Adam Deal
Best Road on Which to Break the Sound Barrier:Highway 100This unofficial raceway begins somewhere between Harris Teeter and the Corner Market. From that point on, Highway 100, that vital artery of Nashville bridging Belle Meade to Bellevue, becomes the most cutthroat speedway this side of Bristol. The speed limit, set at a hilariously low 45 mph, is barely enforced, and even if you want to go that slow, there’s a good chance you’ll get run off the road. These aren’t sports cars doing 90 at 7 in the morning; these are the chariots of suburbia—Yukons, Suburbans, maybe an Excursion or two. Glance inside the window of one of these death machines and you won’t see irresponsible teenagers driving faster than they should, but middle-aged mothers, eyes glazed over, with hands firmly gripped on the steering wheel. Be warned, you fast and furious: The Metro Police speed trap this area once a year, on the day of Steeplechase.
—Deke Shearon
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Best Bellevue Innovation: Drive-Thru Starbucks On Highway 100, far closer to Loveless than Hillsboro Village, lies Nashville’s only drive-thru Starbucks. Want your Venti Chai but embarrassed about that stain on your tie? Need that Frappacino but crippled by your social anxiety? Unable to get out of the car without that first jolt of caffeine? Bellevue has a solution for you. Besides, you can always drive further to be lazy.
—Deke Shearon
Best Ticket-Tearer: Clyde at Green Hills Cinema 16 Two teenagers, a boy and a girl, are on their first date at Green Hills Cinema 16. The boy buys the tickets for the R-rated movie from the credit-card kiosk to avoid being carded, and, girl in arm, nervously approaches the ticket-tearer, praying they get into the movie. Before him stands Clyde, the bespectacled, immaculately dressed older gentleman who has served the Green Hills theater loyally since its opening. Clyde takes the tickets from the boy, tears them without question, and pulls the girl aside. “Is that handsome man treating you alright?” he says with a combination of clever irony and terrifying seriousness. The boy giggles nervously and retakes the girl’s arm, grabbing his stub and leading her down the escalator. Clyde, the best ticket-tearer in Nashville, goes on to the next customer.
—Deke Shearon
Best Place to Take Kids When It’s Raining: The Creative Fitness Center Walking into the Creative Fitness Center, the first site is an array of art hanging haphazardly on the sunny yellow walls. This is no Cumberland Gallery—the art is all produced by patrons of the center. Brainchild of owner Whitney Ferre, the CFC, located in a small bungalow on Linden Avenue, is dedicated to teaching and encouraging art in young and old alike. Drop-ins are welcome and can choose from myriad activities—painting, print-making, pottery wheels, paint-your-own pottery. Regular classes are offered as well in the use of various media and aren’t limited to the younger clientele. For adults looking for a hip variation on the dinner-and-a-movie date, try the Friday night “Better than a Bar” Club, a laid-back workshop that combines alcohol, adults and art (BYOB of course).
—Alice Fort
Best Bathroom: (Tie) Frist Center for the Visual Arts/Bongo Java Roasting Co. We’re just going to assume that the winners in this category are women’s rest rooms—for obvious reasons. The first potty award goes to the Frist Center, whose loos feature elegantly tiled floors, sleek marble sinks equipped with their own mirrors and tall windows that allow glorious streams of light into the room. It’s the perfect place to contemplate the fine art you’ve just encountered in the center’s galleries. Now, if you tend to suffer from stage fright and enjoy a more private, yet scenic lavatory, head on over to East Nashville’s Bongo Java. This potty should win Best View of the Nashville Skyline From a Bathroom Facility. No, it’s not equipped with a huge window, but rather a fantastic mural of the city by David Glick, the same guy who brought us the Hillsboro Village dragon.
—Erin G. Edwards
Best Bathroom to Avoid at All Costs: Broadway Brewhouse/Mojo Grill Virtually any bathroom in a bar is a bad one, since people are consistently inconsistent after one too many pints. There are certainly grimier places than the Brewhouse/Mojo Grill bathroom (in the Third World for instance), but they don’t come much more cramped for space than this one. Claustrophobes beware! A trip to the Brewhouse potty feels like you’ve boarded a crowded Tokyo subway train, minus the men in white gloves pushing you through the door. The company that places ads in bathroom stalls must be pleased, but when we ladies close the stall door and take a seat, we end up practically nose to nose with a Nashville Predator or DUI Mike. Luckily, what the Brewhouse and Mojo Grill lack in potty atmosphere they make up for in beer selection.
—Erin G. Edwards
Best Place to Have a Cell Phone Handy: Anywhere in Cool Springs Recently, a lead-footed friend of mine lost me on the way to our happy hour destination in Cool Springs. My experience from then on confirmed what I’ve known all along: Cell phones are our friends. I stopped to ask for directions, which ended up being worthless. I stopped again to use a pay phone, and the dinosaur-like contraption refused to work. I was stranded somewhere in retail land, my frustration building into a mighty Galleria of Stress. Everywhere I turned, everything looked exactly...the bloody...same. I drove around, committing no fewer than five U-turn violations, until giving up and retreating home.
—Erin G. Edwards
Best Urban Risk-Taker: March Egerton In 1998, realizing that East Nashville had the “components of a real neighborhood,” March Egerton started buying up houses and commercial properties and renovating them—or as he puts it, “foolin’ with houses.” It’s now four years later, and his properties along 11th Street (Bongo Java Roasting Co., Cafe Margot and the new Velvetant Salon) are huge players in the renewed vitality of Five Points. Egerton says that he looks for the most interesting tenants whenever possible. “If I had taken the quick and easy route,” he says, “Margot’s would have never been Margot’s; it would have been a discount tobacco market.” He’s set the ball rolling, and now bigger companies are considering the area. When asked about this prospect, Egerton says he has no problem with it; he only hopes that government agencies hold them to the same strict standards that the little guys, like himself, must uphold. His latest project, a former mosque on 11th Street, has been gutted and is ready for what he hopes will be restaurant use.
—Erin G. Edwards
Best Local Celebrity for Children:Chemical Bond (Keith Trehy of Mad Science of Nashville) “My name is Bond. Chemical Bond.” Most of the kids Keith Trehy entertains daily don’t get this joke, but the name has nevertheless stuck. Originally from London, Trehy takes pride in the name that has caught on just as well as his company, Mad Science, which has attracted the attention of parents and kids from all over Middle Tennessee. In three years, Trehy and his wife, Angie, have built a successful community outreach business around providing kids with valuable science education while giving them a good laugh. Trehy makes the task simple with his easygoing rapport with kids: a combination of his geeky-yet-cool admiration for chemistry, slapstick humor and dry English wit. It’s a rapport that has turned Trehy into a celebrity with a lower case “c”—one whose fans usually average under 5 feet tall. “I can’t go to the mall or zoo without kids running toward me yelling, 'It’s Chemical Bond!’ ” Trehy notes with a grin.
—Erin G. Edwards
Best Sign of the Continuing Gentrification of 12th Avenue South: Portland Brewing/Iron Gate/Serendipity Things continue to look up for 12th Avenue South between Linden and Sevier Park. In the past six months, at least three new upscale tenants have joined the street’s retail crowd, which already includes Becker’s Bakery, Fork’s Drum Closet, 21st Christian Bookstore, 12South Yoga, Mirror restaurant and Trim hair salon. The newest kids on the block are the Portland Brewing Co. coffeehouse, The Iron Gate antique shop and Serendipity, a trendy clothing store. The number of SUVs parked at each establishment indicates the word is out.
—Angela Wibking
Best Institutional Make-Over: Cumberland Science Museum Scarcely four years ago, smart money might have bet that the Cumberland Science Museum wouldn’t make it into the 21st century. Now, under the leadership of board chairman Bert Mathews and museum president Ralph Schultz, the sky—literally—is the limit for one of Nashville’s sentimental favorites. The Adventure Tower presently under construction features a glass “sky pyramid” projecting from the roof, under which 75 vertical feet of interactive science and engineering activities are being arranged in an elaborate tree house for kids. The tower is but one of 4 million dollars’ worth of projects currently underway at the CSM campus. By July, the tower will be complete, and kids will be reaching for the sky. From there, it’s but a short extra step to begin reaching for the stars.
—Marc K. Stengel
Best Closet Conservative: Bob Clement You have to wonder if the local Democrats who give eight-term Congressman Bob Clement a free reelection pass every two years ever glance at his record. Recent Clement fealty to a Republican majority in the face of massive Democratic opposition includes voting for Bush’s faith-based initiative; for GOP tax breaks tilted toward the wealthy; against better workplace ergonomic rules; for public school prayer; against domestic partnership benefits; and for consumer-unfriendly bankruptcy rules, to name a few. Clement gets low to mediocre ratings for his voting record from environmental, pro-choice, consumer protection and civil liberties organizations (but high marks from the NRA). This year Clement abandons his safe perch in the House for a run at Fred Thompson’s Senate seat. He’s in the race as a Democrat, although we had to check twice to make sure.
—Bruce Barry
Best Way to Get a Metro Department to Return Your Call: The Mayor’s Office of Neighborhoods As children, when mom wouldn’t give us an answer about getting that cool, red banana seat bike, we went to dad. It works much the same with Metro government. When animal control or public works or codes officials aren’t responding, call the mayor’s office. Mayor Bill Purcell’s administration isn’t known for making friends within city government, but the voters are happy. That’s because the Mayor’s Office of Neighborhoods is constantly watching city bureaucrats and agencies like a hawk, making sure they respond to constituent concerns or complaints in a timely manner. It’s governance by bullying, but it works.
Best Metro Council Member Not Running for Something Else: David Briley OK, so it’s Briley two years running. But this diminutive East Nashville attorney really rises above many of his peers. We like Briley because he gives good quote, doesn’t play footsie with Mayor Purcell and isn’t afraid to defy the Metro Council’s loonier factions. He spoke against both council member Ron Nollner’s blatantly unconstitutional proposed Ten Commandments legislation and council member Brenda Gilmore’s showy but toothless anti-death penalty resolution. He’s a true independent, and in a council inundated with panderers to both the right and left, that’s refreshing. Given his progressive instincts and commonsense approach, Briley would have made a formidable candidate for the departing Bob Clement’s seat had he decided to get in the race. But surely bigger and better things await.
—Matt Pulle
Best Looming Crisis: Pedro Garcia’s Mouth So far, Metro schools director Pedro Garcia has wisely lobbed his verbal grenades at the largely disparaged (and irrelevant) teachers’ union. In fact, in a memorable interview with The Tennessean last fall, he said that, on a scale of 1-10, the union is a zero. “It’s all combative, and it’s all about complaining,” he said. Garcia was right on that point, but sometime soon he’s not going to pick his targets so wisely. Garcia has a rather autocratic leadership style, and even when he delegates authority, it is to people who are strictly loyal to him. If and when Mayor Purcell, who is a similar sort of autocrat, decides to offer up his own educational initiatives—or lightly criticize Garcia’s radically revamped budget—you can bet that a fuming Garcia will tell every news outlet in town what he thinks and why. And we imagine that Purcell will counter with a proportionate response.
—Matt Pulle
