Downtown Presbyterian Church in Nashville

Nashville honky-tonks and the Nashville Experience

Everyone thinks of our honky-tonks when they think of Nashville and that's for a good reason. There is a good bit of history that ties Nashville's music legends to the honky-tonks. Back when Tootsie's Orchid Lounge was called Mom's and "Tootsie" bought it in 1960. So many legends worked there singing or drinking as they struggled to make it in the music business.

Tootsie's is the most famous of all the honky-tonks but there are some other ones on the same strip that carry as much weight. Robert's Western World, Legend's Corner, The Stage, Bluegrass Inn, Rippy's and more. Each one has it's own style and flair so be sure to visit each one and see which one is right for you. Sometimes the music is mediocre but days and nights it is some really great music. These are some of the best places to hear up and coming as well as some established artists.

Read the entire article when you follow the link...

http://www.webbspunideas.com/news.html

My "Good Life" by Joe

The good life is being able to retire at 40 and then coach your sons team to the little league world series and win it. Afterwards taking two months to drive around the country, visiting different state parks, national parks, amusement parks, going to sporting events and seeing the different stadiums.

It's showing my sons the country they live in and letting them see it with their own eyes instead of just reading about it. Creating lasting memories for the entire family.
~Joe from New York

~~~Joe and his family have now done all this stuff. Congratulations Joe and let that be an inspiration to us all.~~~

Nashville Audio Tour- coming from Webbspun Ideas

Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum- Free Admission on Saturday, January 24

THE COUNTRY MUSIC HALL OF FAME® AND MUSEUM AGAIN SAYS “THANK YOU” TO MIDDLE TENNESSEE WITH “FORD COMMUNITY DAY,” MADE POSSIBLE BY FORD MOTOR COMPANY FUND

As a not-for-profit educational organization, the Country Music Hall of Fame® and Museum is pleased to partner with Ford Motor Company Fund for the second consecutive year to say thank you to the Middle Tennessee community (and all lucky out-of-town visitors to the Museum on this day) by offering free Museum admission on Saturday, January 24, 2009. The Museum will be open from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.

In addition to touring the exhibit galleries, visitors will be able to enjoy two free Songwriter Sessions. The performances, which will take place in the Museum’s Ford Theater, will feature John Ford Coley (11:30 a.m.) and Wynn Varble (1:30 p.m.). Songwriter Sessions, which are offered every Saturday, are made possible by Ford Motor Company Fund.

About Ford Motor Company Fund and Community Services
Ford Motor Company Fund and Community Services is committed to creating opportunities that promote corporate citizenship, philanthropy, volunteerism and cultural diversity for those who live in the communities where Ford operates. Established in 1949 and made possible by funding from Ford Motor Company, Ford Motor Company Fund supports initiatives and institutions that foster innovative education, auto-related safety, and American heritage and legacy. National programs include Ford Partnership for Advanced Studies, which provides high school students with academically rigorous 21st century learning experiences, and Driving Skills for Life, a teen-focused auto safety initiative. The Ford Volunteer Corps, established in 2005, continues Ford's legacy of caring worldwide. Through the Volunteer Corps, Ford employees and retirees participate in a wide range of volunteer projects in their communities. For more information on programs made possible by Ford Motor Company Fund and Community Services, visit www.community.ford.com.

About the Country Music Hall of Fame® and Museum
Accredited by the American Association of Museums, the Country Music Hall of Fame® and Museum is operated by the Country Music Foundation, a not-for-profit 501(c)(3) educational organization chartered by the state of Tennessee in 1964. The Museum’s mission is the preservation of the history of country and related vernacular music rooted in southern culture. With the same educational mission, the Foundation also operates CMF Records, the Museum’s Frist Library and Archive, CMF Press, Historic RCA Studio B, and Hatch Show Print. More information about the Country Music Hall of Fame® and Museum is available at www.countrymusichalloffame.com or by calling (615) 416-2001.

Battle of New Orleans Commemoration at The Hermitage- Free Admission

Thursday, January 8, 2009 at 10:00am

FREE Admission all day!

Visit The Hermitage and celebrate the 194th anniversary of the American victory at the Battle of New Orleans, which ended the War of 1812, sometimes referred to as the "Second War of Independence." This victory, led by General Andrew Jackson, left no doubt of America's independence and propelled Jackson on to an incredible journey in American politics. Join us for this patriotic celebration that was once rivaled in national importance only by the Fourth of July. Our special "Eighth of January" event includes a traditional ceremony at Jackson's tomb, walking tours, tour of the Hermitage mansion and more!

Centennial Park becomes a national treasure

Mayor Karl Dean and The Conservancy for the Parthenon and Centennial Park and the Metro Board of Parks and Recreation will make the announcement and tour the park's historic monuments.

Monday, November 17
2:00pm

Meet at the John Thomas Monument in Centennial Park
(In case of rain they will be in the Parthenon)

Did you miss the latest edition of the Music City Notes? Sign up now so you don't miss the next one

Some of the things you missed...

HAVE YOU SEEN THE BILLY GRAHAM STATUE IN DOWNTOWN NASHVILLE?

DOWNTOWN CHURCH ARCHITECTURE

TENNESSEE WINES

TRAVEL TIP

CIVIL WAR HISTORY IN NASHVILLE
~~~
Visit the Webbspun Ideas website to sign up today!

Famous Fat Dave Talks About Pumpkin Pie

Learn about the history of Pumpkin Pie from Famous Fat Dave.

Nashville’s Union Station Hotel Reopened and Rededicated After $10 Million Renovation Project

Nashville’s Union Station Hotel, fresh from a $10 million renovation, marks its grand reopening Oct. 9, exactly 107 years after the Louisville & Nashville Railroad opened the building as a showplace train station.

“We see Oct. 9, 2007, as a rededication of a Nashville treasure,” said Phil Goldfarb, president and chief operating officer of Turnberry Associates, majority owner of the property.

Highlights of the $10 million renovation project involve a complete restoration, cleaning and redressing of the station’s original design and architectural features, including:

• Delicate accents in the 65-foot lobby, including a polishing of the 128 panels of multi-colored stained glass atop the hotel’s original barrel-vaulted ceiling
• Addition of an “upscale comfortable” restaurant named Prime 108
• Installation of a new marble floor in the hotel’s expansive lobby, plus cleaning of the hotel’s original gold-leaf medallions and rare bas-relief sculptures
• New marble in all bathrooms, and many guestrooms amended with glass-enclosed showers
  A total makeover of all guestrooms—no two of which are exactly alike—including furniture, fixtures and décor
• Behind-the-scenes modernization of heating, air-conditioning, Internet and other systems

“There was a grand celebration Oct. 9, 1900, that marked Union Station as a major factor in Nashville’s transportation and economic life. This Oct. 9, we put the Union Station Hotel in the spotlight again for its role in Nashville’s hospitality, tourism and meetings industries,” said Mark Bloom, a principal in Nashville-based Corner Partnership, which owns the hotel with Turnberry Associates.

The Union Station Hotel, a Wyndham Historic Hotel and a member of Historic Hotels of America, is one of Nashville’s most identifiable buildings. Many visitors consider it part of a Nashville architectural trifecta that consists of the Union Station Hotel, the nearby Ryman Auditorium and the city’s replica of the Parthenon from ancient Athens.

“The building’s size and Romanesque design are impressive now. We can only imagine what an impact it had when it opened at the turn of the last century,” Bloom said.

It is 247 feet tall from track level to the top of its clock tower, where a statue of Mercury, messenger of the gods and god of roads and travelers, perches.

The architectural and design touches inside are a tribute to artisans of another era. In addition to the signature stained-glass ceiling are large clocks at either end of the lobby, a bas-relief sculpture of an Egyptian pharaoh in a chariot and another bas-relief sculpture of a powerful steam locomotive.

The bas-relief locomotive is No. 108, which inspired the name of the hotel’s new restaurant, Prime 108.


Read more in Hospitality 1st.

Centennial Park Signs

Wardman Park Hotel in Washington D.C.

This was where I spent many, many hours during my time in Washington D.C.. A great hotel with lots of history and elegance. The old Wardman Tower was once a place of residence and the rest of the facility was the hotel. That changed a few months after I started and I remember the stories of Dwight Eisenhower living there for a time.

Truly a remarkable place to stay during a visit to Washington and with the upper rooms you get a great view of the city.

They also have an amazing variety of foods on the same block which also has a Metro stop. Very convenient and elegant.










Wardman Park hotel
2660 Woodley Road, NW
Washington, District Of Columbia 20008
202-328-2000

Build It and They Will Come
The Life and Times of Harry Wardman (1872-1938)

When real estate agents describe their listings in Northwest Washington, they are always happy to add "It's a Wardman", if the house or apartment building was built by Harry Wardman. He was one of the greatest of all Washington real estate developers, and his name is associated with a high quality of design and materials. So great is his legacy that some houses are "Wardman Wannabe's", who’s past owners pretended they were built by Wardman, when in fact they weren't. Since Harry Wardman was responsible for building some 80,000 housing units from the early 1900's to 1938, the real thing can be found all over the city, in neighborhoods such as Columbia Heights, Brightwood, Woodley and Kalorama.

Born in England, Harry Wardman came to this country by accident. At he age of 17, he stowed away on a ship bound from London to Australia. When he was discovered, he was put off the ship in the nearest port, which happened to be New York City. He worked his way to Philadelphia, then on to Washington, DC, where he began to work for construction companies. From these modest beginnings, he became the biggest, most influential builder in the District of Columbia. His work spanned three decades, including over 4000 single-family houses, 12 office buildings, 2 embassies, 1 parking garage, 8 hotels, 2 clubs, 2 hospital annexes and 400 apartment buildings!

He built the Northumberland, the Dresden, the Hay-Adams Hotel, the Jefferson Hotel, the St. Regis, and the British Embassy. He built elaborate, expensive buildings and he built low cost housing. Harry Wardman wasn't shy about his talent or his success. When he built seven buildings on R street, between 14th and 15th, he had the first letter of each building spell out his name: W-A-R-D-M-A-N. Ten years later, Morris Cafritz followed suit with seven buildings on Spring Street NW that spelled out C-A-F-R-I-T-Z. Wardman was responsible, more than any other developer, for turning Washington from a city of rooming houses to a city of apartment buildings, most of which were later converted to condominiums in the 1970's.

Of all the things he built, Harry Wardman considered his crowning glory to be the Wardman Park Hotel and the Wardman Tower, at the corner of Connecticut and Woodley. The hotel, which is now owned by Marriott, was called "Wardman's Folly" in 1916, while it was under construction. Critics said it was too far out of the city to be successful, but they were wrong. The hotel was soon filled to capacity. At the end of World War I, Washington's population increased greatly, and at that time, people lived in hotels much as they live in apartments today.

It was the largest and grandest hotel to be built in Washington, and one of the 10 largest in the country. Designed by Frank R. White, the building was patterned after "The Homestead" resort hotel in Hot Springs, Virginia. Among the special features were 1200 rooms, a 200' by 45' lobby, a dining room for 500, a Turkish bath, billiards room, drugstore and grocery.

In his book,"Capital Losses", James Goode describes just how far Wardman would go to pursue a project. When he decided to add a luxury apartment tower to the hotel, he tore down his own house, while his wife was visiting in Paris! He moved all the furniture out in 48 hours, tore down the elegant stucco manor house, and quickly set to work on the dream tower.

Over time, the Wardman Tower turned out to be everything Harry Wardman envisioned. No other place in Washington was home to as many famous people; a partial roster of resident s over the years includes Herbert Hoover, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Adlai Stevenson, John Foster Dulles, Perle Mesta, Clare Booth Luce, Dean Rusk, Barry Goldwater and Lyndon Johnson and Casper Weinberger.

Harry Wardman finished the apartment tower in 1928. Unfortunately, he paid more attention to the construction and design of his buildings than to his finances. The Depression found him cash-short and overextended. He lost all his vast real estate empire worth $30,000,000, and only managed to keep on building houses, because some of the land he owned had been deeded in his wife's name. He built more than 1000 houses in the 1930's, and was on his way to creating a second real estate empire, when he died of cancer in 1938. At the time of his death, he estimated that 10% of Washington's population lived in a "Wardman".

I found this story at

Evers & Company

Real Estate Inc.

Beautiful Tombstones

A Visit to the Lost River Cave in Bowling Green, Kentucky

Entrance into the boat ride


The Entrance




The Ballroom/Dance Floor

The Bandstand

5 Observations on D.C.

1. Aircraft - With the Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport located a couple miles south of the Mall on the Potomac's western edge, commercial planes are an almost constant presence. On the three days I was in D.C. planes took off to the north and west, flying low over the Jefferson Memorial (above), the western edge of the mall, and Arlington Cemetery. These three areas are home to monuments, places of remembrance and reverence, so I was surprised to almost always have the sound of engines overhead, be it planes or helicopters.


3. Grand Streets - Grand MetroThe streets in D.C. are extremely wide, helping to give the place its monumentality and scale that makes people feel small in the face of the government. One thing these wide streets enable are similarly grand underground stations for the Metro. Unlike many of the stations in New York that are constrained by not only street widths but other service snaking their way underground, the D.C. stations are beautifully spacious, aided by dramatic, indirect lighting illuminating the concrete vaults. Interestingly, the light levels are lower in D.C. than New York, though the feeling of security is greater, achieved via the large, open spaces.


To see the rest of this list, visit the archidose blog. It is an architectural blog.

The Nashville Experience

This walking tour takes you out to really see what makes Nashville, "NASHVILLE."

We will taste local foods, hear live music, admire beautiful architecture and see historical places. With this tour I want to show you the uniqueness of my city and show you all the things that will make you fall in love with it and understand what makes this city such a desirable place to visit and live.

Some of the culinary options include bar-b-que, sushi, pizza, a hot brown sandwich, sweet potato fries, chocolates, pralines and more.

4 hour minimum


$50.00 per hour, up to 5 people

Email me at corey@webbspunideas.com to set up a tour or for more information.

Nine Centuries of History and Wine Making

Follow the Danube northwest out of Vienna by car, train or bicycle, and the cityscape shaped by the Hapsburgs and the Secessionist architect Otto Wagner quickly slides away into verdant countryside. Hamlets pop up, like tiny Kahlenbergerdorf, looking like an Epcot Center idealization of a Mitteleuropean village; Wagner's Art Nouveau Church of St. Leopold looms stark and lovely on a hilltop.

Twenty minutes outside the city limits, the Stift Klosterneuburg, a 900-year-old monastery straight out of a fairy tale, comes into view, rising up above the B14 highway with its stern peaks set against the backdrop of a steep, perfect-for-grape-growing hill. “Wo sich Himmel und Erde Begegnen” (“Where Heaven and Earth Meet”) advertises posters, beckoning visitors.

To read the rest of the story, please visit the New York Times

Tennessee State Capitol

The Tennessee State Capitol opened in 1859 and is a magnificent tribute to the people of Tennessee.

The capitol was designed by architect William Strickland who considered it his crowning achievement. The architectural style is Greek Revival. Strickland began his career as an apprentice to Benjamin LaTrobe, who was the architect of the U.S. Capitol in Washington D.C..
When Strickland died suddenly during construction in 1854, he was buried in the north facade of the Capitol, per his wishes.

The cornerstone for the building was laid on July 4, 1845, and construction finished in 1859. The grounds of the State Capitol contain statues honoring Sam Davis, Sgt. Alvin York, and Presidents Andrew Jackson and Andrew Johnson. The tombs of President and Mrs. James K. Polk are also located on the Capitol grounds.

The Capitol was used during the Civil War as a Union Fortress.

Guided Tours:
Guided tours are available on Monday through Friday at 9 a.m., 10 a.m., 11 a.m., 1 p.m., 2 p.m., and 3 p.m., beginning at the Information Desk on the first floor.

Groups of ten or more should make a reservation prior to their visit by calling the Public Programs Department at (615)741-0830 or toll-free 800-407-4324.

Carnton Plantation (Civil War)- Nashville History

~Built by Randal McGavock, Nashville's first mayor (1824-1825).

~The plantation house, which is late-neoclassical, is considered architecturally and historically one of the most important buildings in the area.

~In its early years the mansion was a social and political center. Among the prominent visitors attending the many social events were Andrew Jackson, James K. Polk and Sam Houston.

~The plantation was used as a Confederate hospital after the bloody Battle of Franklin on November 30, 1864. 12 confederate soldiers were killed.

~ In 1866 the McGavock family donated two acres adjacent to their family cemetary for the burial of some 1,500 Confederate soldiers.

~The McGavock Confederate Cemetary is the country's largest private Confederate cemetary.

~The book "Widow of the South" was written about it. It is a fictional book though.

Stones River (Civil War)

~It is near Murfreesboro, Tennessee

~A fierce battle was fought here between December 31, 1862 and January 2, 1863.

~General Bragg's Confederates withdrew after the battle, allowing General Rosecrans and the Union army to control Middle Tennessee.

~600 acres that is a National Battlefield~Stones River National Cemetary, established in 1865 with more than 6,000 Union graves.

~Hazen Brigade Monument, believed to be the oldest, intact Civil War monument still standing in its original location.

~Portions of Fortress Rosecrans, a large earthen fort constructed after the battle, still stand and are preserved and interpreted by the National Park Service.

~Much of the nearly 4,000 acre battlefield is in private hands.

~Abraham Lincoln told Major General William S. Rosecrans, "You gave us a hard-earned victory which, had there been defeat instead, the nation could hardly have lived over."