Moving to Nashville
April 29, 2005 3:09 PM Subscribe
It looks like I'm going to be moving to Nashville for work next month. I'll be working in the Brentwood area. Does anyone have any recommendations of places to live or cool things to check out once I get there?
I just moved to Nashville last summer. I find it to be a really livable city on the whole. It would help to know what sorts of things you like to do.
I live in the Hillsboro Village area which is right between Vanderbilt and Belmont University. It's the only part of the Nashville that could be considered pedestrian in any sense. I can walk to several cool coffe shops, unique restaurants, gigs, etc. However, if you're into golf and malls and what not, this is probably not your area.
Like Chris said, Brentwood tends to be very expensive and suffers from bad suburbia traffic. It's beautiful, but it's not the sort of place I'd want to live.
posted by aaronh at 8:35 PM on April 29, 2005
I live in the Hillsboro Village area which is right between Vanderbilt and Belmont University. It's the only part of the Nashville that could be considered pedestrian in any sense. I can walk to several cool coffe shops, unique restaurants, gigs, etc. However, if you're into golf and malls and what not, this is probably not your area.
Like Chris said, Brentwood tends to be very expensive and suffers from bad suburbia traffic. It's beautiful, but it's not the sort of place I'd want to live.
posted by aaronh at 8:35 PM on April 29, 2005
You gotta go to the Country Music Hall of Fame if you're in Nashville. It is a beautifully done museum in every way, surprisingly hi-tech, too.
posted by wsg at 10:52 PM on April 29, 2005
posted by wsg at 10:52 PM on April 29, 2005
Ditto on the expense of Brentwood, but it's really a Williamson County thing. Any of the adjacent counties are much more affordable, but Williamson County supposedly has the best (public) school system in the state. This, among other things like an active city planning / zoning system, makes for higher costs of living than in Davidson or Rutherford counties.
Things to do:
- Ditto on the County Music Hall of Fame, as well. More interesting than you would think.
- Check out Hatch Show Print (on Broadway downtown) has been making letter-press posters for over 100 years. Interesting place, particularly if you can get them to tell you a bit about the history.
- Canoe the Harpeth River. The Narrows of the Harpeth is a unique opportunity to go on a 2-hour canoe run where you take out about a 2-minute walk from where you put in.
- The state parks are all killer.
- Joey's House of Pizza in Brentwood has the best chicken parmesan and veggie lasagna EVER.
- Blair School of Music, a division of Vanderbilt, also hosts frequent concerts of various nature (and many are free) in their wonderful auditoriums.
- And if you like Indian food, Sitar is one of my favorite places to get it.
- If you are looking for the indie record shop with the widest variety, check out Grimey's (www.grimeys.com) on 8th.
- Cheekwood Museum is a nice museum on the grounds of the former estate of the folks who were responsible for Maxwell House Coffee.
- And the Frist Museum usually has a couple of interesting shows, but walking through the huge old post office building that houses it is worth the price of admission.
- The sound in Ryman Auditorium has been described by Emmylou Harris is "like performing inside a giant guitar." Lots of great (expensive) shows play there, but I hear the tour of the building is worthwhile. Their Summer bluegrass shows on Thursdays are usually relatively inexpensive, particularly considering the caliber of performers they book.
- Opry Mills is the mall from Hell if you're into mile-wide parking lots and an enclosed city dedicated to retail shopping. They also have an Imax theatre, which is about the only reason I can see to ever go there.
- And then of course there's the Grand Ol Opry.
posted by dontrockwobble at 8:50 AM on April 30, 2005 [1 favorite]
Things to do:
- Ditto on the County Music Hall of Fame, as well. More interesting than you would think.
- Check out Hatch Show Print (on Broadway downtown) has been making letter-press posters for over 100 years. Interesting place, particularly if you can get them to tell you a bit about the history.
- Canoe the Harpeth River. The Narrows of the Harpeth is a unique opportunity to go on a 2-hour canoe run where you take out about a 2-minute walk from where you put in.
- The state parks are all killer.
- Joey's House of Pizza in Brentwood has the best chicken parmesan and veggie lasagna EVER.
- Blair School of Music, a division of Vanderbilt, also hosts frequent concerts of various nature (and many are free) in their wonderful auditoriums.
- And if you like Indian food, Sitar is one of my favorite places to get it.
- If you are looking for the indie record shop with the widest variety, check out Grimey's (www.grimeys.com) on 8th.
- Cheekwood Museum is a nice museum on the grounds of the former estate of the folks who were responsible for Maxwell House Coffee.
- And the Frist Museum usually has a couple of interesting shows, but walking through the huge old post office building that houses it is worth the price of admission.
- The sound in Ryman Auditorium has been described by Emmylou Harris is "like performing inside a giant guitar." Lots of great (expensive) shows play there, but I hear the tour of the building is worthwhile. Their Summer bluegrass shows on Thursdays are usually relatively inexpensive, particularly considering the caliber of performers they book.
- Opry Mills is the mall from Hell if you're into mile-wide parking lots and an enclosed city dedicated to retail shopping. They also have an Imax theatre, which is about the only reason I can see to ever go there.
- And then of course there's the Grand Ol Opry.
posted by dontrockwobble at 8:50 AM on April 30, 2005 [1 favorite]
All of the above responses give excellent advice. I'd just like to add that the Belcourt Theatre is a great place to see movies and music. And you've got to go get popsicles at Las Paletas at some point. They are insanely good. And the Nashville Scene is a great source of info about fun happenings in Nashville.
Like aaronh, I live in the Belmont-Hillsobro neighborhood and I love it. It's a fairly liberal oasis, with cool old houses and lots of trees. I'm not crazy about Brentwood (generic suburbia, at least the few parts that I've seen), and if I worked in Brentwood I would gladly commute from where I live. The commute would be about 15-20 minutes max, and the worst traffic would be flowing in the opposite direction. That said, this neighborhood has recently gotten pretty expensive, possibly more so than the cheaper parts of Brentwood. We rent, and there's no way we could afford to buy a house here. But there are a lot of good (and cheap) rentals if you keep your eyes peeled.
posted by nixxon at 3:48 PM on April 30, 2005
Like aaronh, I live in the Belmont-Hillsobro neighborhood and I love it. It's a fairly liberal oasis, with cool old houses and lots of trees. I'm not crazy about Brentwood (generic suburbia, at least the few parts that I've seen), and if I worked in Brentwood I would gladly commute from where I live. The commute would be about 15-20 minutes max, and the worst traffic would be flowing in the opposite direction. That said, this neighborhood has recently gotten pretty expensive, possibly more so than the cheaper parts of Brentwood. We rent, and there's no way we could afford to buy a house here. But there are a lot of good (and cheap) rentals if you keep your eyes peeled.
posted by nixxon at 3:48 PM on April 30, 2005
Oh, and you ought to check out Dave Cloud at Springwater some time. It's an experience.
posted by nixxon at 3:55 PM on April 30, 2005
posted by nixxon at 3:55 PM on April 30, 2005
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What kinds of things do you like to do? (i.e., what kinds of cool things do you do where you already live?)
posted by ChrisTN at 5:03 PM on April 29, 2005