Ancient Nashville
Good afternoon, everyone. Today, we reflect on some of the new developments in town, look at the AG’s suit against the DOE, talk about who is and might be running for Mark Green’s old seat, and talk with the director of the new Pierce Brosnan/Samuel Jackson western The Unholy Trinity. First time reading? Sign up here.
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In America, we don’t have structures from ancient civilizations scattered across the continent like you might see in Greece or Rome. There are some structures from various pre-colonial Indian tribes, such as the Serpent Mound in Ohio, but the closest we get to a real Parthenon in ruins is the hollowed-out insides of old manufacturing facilities.
In Nashville, for example, there is Marathon Village, formerly an automobile manufacturing plant, now a combo office-mall. Along its hallways are photos and equipment that remind us of the great industriousness once found there in homage to the spirit of quintessential American inventiveness.
I did some semi-urban spelunking the other day at the Neuhoff District over in Germantown. Built in an old meatpacking plant, the development really leans into the aesthetics of ruin. Brand new, floor-to-ceiling windows fitted into the side of a partially demolished building overlooking a courtyard that might’ve been a collapsed pile of bricks until the reinforced steel beams arrived on the scene.
Inside the cavernous interior, there is the new restaurant Fishmonger, whose Atlanta location received kudos from Michelin, and down a flight of stairs, into what was once the hide cellar, is a bar called Close Company, whose central feature is a “conversation pit” that is just a retrofitted holding tank for cow hides.
The town is replete with examples of this, where, instead of demolishing and building anew, businesses and developers lean into the heritage of a building site and play it up. Most manufacturing facilities have moved out of the cities and into more suburban and rural areas, but these developments still serve as a stark reminder that the American city—and Nashville in particular—were once more than just adult playgrounds.
Perhaps the best expression of how much our cities have transformed from engines of invention and production to post-college theme parks is that Silicon Valley — the most productive, innovative region in the world — is a suburb. San Francisco is where Steve Jobs would go to buy his suits when he flirted with wearing them. Speaking of suits, there's a menswear store in the Neuhoff District too. DAVIS HUNT
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🎓 AG Sues DOE Yesterday, Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti and Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. filed an anti-discrimination lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Education regarding its Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI) program. Currently, only higher education institutions with a student body comprising at least 25 percent Hispanic students can apply for these federal funds.
“A federal grant system that openly discriminates against students based on ethnicity isn’t just wrong and un-American—it’s unconstitutional,” said General Skrmetti in a press release. “The HSI program perversely deprives even needy Hispanic students of the benefits of this funding if they attend institutions that don’t meet the government’s arbitrary quota.”
In 2023, the Supreme Court ruled that racially discriminatory admissions standards violate the law. The Tennessee AG and SFFA make a similar argument in this case relating grant programs, highlighting Chief Justice John Roberts' opinion articulated in SFFA v. Harvard that “the student must be treated based on his or her experiences as an individual—not on the basis of race.”
🗳️ The Race Is On In District 7 Governor Lee promptly announced his interim appointment to serve as commissioner for the Tennessee Department of General Services yesterday. Starting today, Jeff Holmes will replace Matt Van Epps, who stepped down from the position on Tuesday to pursue U.S. Representative Mark Green’s soon-to-be vacated Congressional seat.
Van Epps, a conservative Army veteran, isn’t the only one with an eye on District 7. Two more veterans have thrown their hats into the race.
Jason Knight, a “staunch constitutionalist” who plans to “deliver Trump’s agenda,” announced his bid yesterday. So did Jon Thorp who, according to the Lookout, “acknowledged he hasn’t voted in 24 years because he didn’t like candidates from either major political party but said he is entering the race as children are being ‘handed a collapsing economy, weaponized bureaucracy and a rigged political class that serves donors instead of voters.’”
The field will only continue to grow. House Speaker Cameron Sexton, state Representatives Jody Barrett and Gino Bulso, country superstar John Rich, and Chris Burger, who owns a public affairs company, and 2023 mayoral candidate Alice Rolli have all been floated as potential candidates on the Republican side of the ticket. As for the Democrats, former Nashville mayors Megan Barry and John Cooper and state Representatives Vincent Dixie, John Ray Clemmons, and Bo Mitchell have been mentioned.
🎨 No Race-based Art Grants During yesterday’s Metro Arts Commission Audit and Finance Committee meeting, Interim Executive Director Ashley Bachelder clarified that the commission did not and does not plan to issue grants based on race. “Right now, the Metro Arts grants, or our contracts in other areas of our work, do not use race as a criteria for funding and we don't have any recommendations to do so,” she said.
Bachelder went on to explain that Metro Council allocated $215,000 last year to fund a disparity study when looking into incorporating race-explicit language in Metro Arts’ grant guidelines. The study was never conducted, and the funding will go back into Metro’s General Fund.
NEW AIRPORT INTERCHANGE
DEVELOPMENT
- Elon Musk's Boring Co. talks Nashville airport tunnel with state officials (NBJ)
- $165M Margin District breaks ground in downtown Franklin (NBJ)
- Music venue, The Trimble, opens in Chestnut Hill (NBJ)
- Residential project eyed for Chestnut Hill (Post)
- Music Row-area apartment building sells for $6.22M (Post)
✹ THE UNHOLY TRINITY AND THE WESTERN'S GLOBAL FRONTIERS
With Yellowstone and its endless line of spinoffs, Taylor Sheridan revived the cowboy as the quintessential presence on popular television. But, the westerns that once defined Hollywood at home and abroad have yet to make their comeback, much less reclaim their glory as the American movies’ greatest genre.
In an industry so fueled by franchise IP, most would shy away from the type of midbudget frontier flicks upon which Hollywood built itself. Luckily, Australian director Richard Gray thinks the western has plenty of life left in it. And so do Pierce Brosnan and Samuel L. Jackson, the stars of his latest project, The Unholy Trinity.
Set in the Montana Territory in the wake of the Civil War, the film follows Henry Broadway (Brandon Lessard) to the town of Trinity, where he seeks vengeance against the sheriff responsible for his father’s hanging. But when an Irish lawman (Brosnan) and a reprobate gold hunter (Jackson) bring the amateur gunslinger into their orbit, Broadway finds that frontier town life is a complex web of posse rage and lopsided power dynamics in which the Scots-Irish, outlanders, and natives vie for their own futures and that of the nation.
Gray sat down with The Pamphleteer to discuss the enduring power of the genre, working with action movie icons, and connecting Australia’s and America’s western mythoi.
THINGS TO DO
View our calendar for the week here and our weekly film rundown here.
📅 Visit our On The Radar list to find upcoming events around Nashville.
🎧 On Spotify: Pamphleteer's Picks, a playlist of our favorite bands in town this week.
👨🏻🌾 Check out our Nashville farmer's market guide.
TONIGHT
🎸 Honey Island Swamp Band @ Dee's Lounge, 9p, $5, Info
🎸 Bonnaroo @ Manchester, TN, Info
+ feat. Luke Combs, Dom Dolla, ICP and more...
🎸 Mae Estes @ Station Inn, 9p, $20, Info
🎻 Bugs Bunny at the Symphony @ Schermerhorn Symphony Center, 7:30p, $48+, Info
🍀 Live Irish Music @ McNamara’s Irish Pub, 6p, Free, Info
🎸 Kelly’s Heroes @ Robert’s Western World, 6:30p, Free, Info
🎸 Open Mic @ Fox & Locke, 6:30p, Free, Info
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📰 Check out the full newsletter archive here.
Today's newsletter is brought to you by Megan Podsiedlik (Nashville), Jerod Hollyfield (Crowd Corner), Camelia Brennan (Local Noise), and Davis Hunt (everything else).