Posted on 08/09/2015 11:39:25 PM PDT by re_nortex
It was built in 1978. My parents and I would take a drive over there when I was little before it was built, it was a cow pasture.
Huffington Post? No more credible than the NY Times. Leftist rag run by kids.
Reminds me of when I was in downtown Dallas in the middle of the day in the early ‘90s. Some guy covered in blood walking down a sidewalk seemingly like it was no big whoop. WTF ?!?
In any event, downtown Nashville is about the safest place to visit in the city now. Have to protect the tourists and their tax $$. I’d be lying if I didn’t say it wasn’t OK to visit today. 30 years ago, it was just empty.
Which is precisely why my opening phrase in this post included these words: ...the loathsome source...
On our local left-leaning urban forum, just had it out with a snarky and patronizing moonbat telling me how he was “sad” that my neck of the woods wasn’t sharing in the prosperity. I told him we were doing just fine until Metro gubmint decided to engage in social engineering in the name of “die-versity” (read: too many Whities in the suburbs).
They did it with the schools, shipping inner-city Blacks out and then encouraging their movement to this area, and that then caused an exodus from the schools and from housing, which precipitated a spike in crime, lowered property values, et al (Whites just simply moved out of county, many in this area went to Rutherford, which has more of the demographics across the county line that we had in the ‘80s). Also had some Southeast Asians (Laotians), who formed gangs, come in (though not explicitly where I am) and following behind them were Mexicans and Central Americans (of both legal and illegal status). They poured in en masse in the late ‘90s and early ‘00s.
Hickory Hollow paid the highest price for this. Since many of its “patrons” were more the loitering type than the buying type, stores began to close up. White women, who shopped their during the day (moms/grandmothers), felt uncomfortable and started looking elsewhere to go because crime was hitting the mall and area. My ex-fiancée, hired because she “looked” like the new demographics to work at one of the department stores, recounted daily horror stories of shoplifting and other disgusting habits (changing rooms used as toilets) and harassment by “yoots.”
I remember walking around it at one point when it was reaching its death throes, and you’d have thought the mall was located either in Detroit or East Los Angeles. A handful of specialized stores catering to the specific ethnic groups, which didn’t look to be doing well. Few Whites, the bulk Black & Hispanic (and not shopping). The department stores closed down one by one because they were either making little or no profit (if not losing money outright).
It’s completely repurposed now, added part of a college annex to it, the city pushed to build an ice-skating rink there and so on. It’s not the “mall” anymore. To see close to what Hickory Hollow used to be, you have to go out of county to Cool Springs (near Brentwood/Franklin).
Unfortunately, Antioch has generally had a transient population. People use it as a stepping stone to better neighborhoods and never stay (on average) more than a few years. At 4 decades in the same spot, we are NOT the norm. It’s funny that we stayed long enough to see many inner-city Blacks who moved here decide to give up to move to SAFER areas, leaving it to the illegals. Hopefully we’ll be here long enough to see the latter group move on (one did nearby and were replaced by Ethiopians, whom are far preferable).
If you don't mind, I've done a re-ping of your informative post to wardaddy, whom I believe lives in Williamson County. His take would be most interesting. One of my friends in the music industry there tells me that Music Row (16th and 17th Avenues) is virtually dead and that most of the records are now made in the far-flung suburbs and he's mentioned Cool Springs to me.
When I lived in Davidson County, my area, up near Madison but south of Old Hickory Blvd, was considered the "other side of the tracks" by the well-to-do in Green Hills who considered we East Nashville people a bunch of hillbillies. I kid you not! I wonder what's become of East Nashville, Inglewood and Madison? I haven't been to that part of the county in decades and all my friends from that part of town no longer live anywhere near it. In fact, come to think of it, you're my sole connection anymore with Davidson County, fieldmarshaldj.
Thanks so much for the response and it's sure helped me catch up on the old stomping grounds!
Wardaddy is fairly well-versed on this.
As far as I know, there’s still a lot of activity in the Music Row area (a lot of new construction, so much so that there’s a moratorium on it at the moment because of concerns of losing whatever is historic (little) left there). The Record Companies have demolished a lot of the old houses that contained the earlier recording studios and built office buildings over the past 4 decades.
East Nashville, Inglewood and Madison... I’m not from that part of the county and never went there too often. Parts of it are being gentrified by the hipsters these days, because of its urban layout and proximity to downtown. Property values are through the roof.
HAha, ewww Ma Brady, eww.
Looking at some info on the mall, there was a JC Penny wing addition in 1982. It was probably the addition that I saw the drawings for.
Might be. When the mall opened in 1978, there were three anchors (Sears on the west side, Cain-Sloan on the south side and Castner-Knott on the east side). J.C. Penney’s was the fourth to open when they added the north wing in the early ‘80s.
It’s curious they didn’t come in at the opening, perhaps concerned about overlap from their store at 100 Oaks Mall (though after HH Mall opened, 100 Oaks began a slow decline, also helped in no small part when Congressman turned Mayor Richard Fulton, an investor in North Nashville/Goodlettsville’s Rivergate Mall, utterly refused and put a stop to an interstate exit being built at 100 Oaks, which was always awkward to get to unless you were coming into it from the east).
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