Centennial Park Photos

After work one day, late in May I took this photo of the pond at Centennial Park in Nashville. I'm not sure what urged me to stop and take some photos, but I did.

The history of this pond is quite interesting. I won't go into all the great details as there are way to many for the scope of this blog, but it was part of the 1897 Tennessee Centennial Exposition.

At the time it was larger and allowed for boat rides. Today it's a much smaller pond and there are no boats. There is no swimming either. They do let people fish, though I doubt there is much to really catch. Though I've been told they stock it.

Many families like to sit along its west bank and feed the geese and ducks. During the summer it is a busy place with lots of activity.

The pond or "Lake Wautauga", as was it's long forgotten name sits near the Parthenon.

These were some pretty flowers near the pond. The park and recs department of the city does a pretty decent job of keeping the city parks clean and full of life. Sure we have a few bums sleeping here and there under a tree, but what do you expect. This is a city of 2+ million (Nashville and surrounding area) and growing.

Thankfully Nashville isn't growing as fast as Atlanta has. If you've driven though Atlanta you know what I mean. Some of those roads are very narrow. They have squeezed as many lanes as physically possible without cars rubbing, into existing roads. There are a couple roads here in Nashville like that as well and I hope they are expanded soon.

The big lacking that Nashville has is public transit. The busses seem to work pretty well, but lets face it, most white collar workers are not going to take the bus. However a train would be used I suspect. We're not big enough for a subway. I also believe the city geology prevents that. I'm no city planner though, so what do I know?