Tomorrow night, the Metro Council will consider Resolution 2012-PR27-Q, which would officially make Puerto Rico the 51st Avenue inNashville.
“It’s high time for Puerto Rico to take its rightful place” decalred Metro Council “At-Large” member Harold Dixon, who authored and will introduce the measure. “For too long, our Puerto Rican brothers and sisters have been denied the full-recognition they so rightly deserve. It’s time to set this right! It’s time to give them a West Nashville street!”
The resolution, which some have begun calling the “Avenue Q” bill after the final letter in its technical title, would change the name of the existing “51st Avenue” in West Nashville to “Puerto Rico Avenue”. If passed, this would place Puerto Rico Ave amongst several nearby streets named after American states like Tennessee, Kentucky, Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, Georgia, Delaware, Alabama, Nevada, Idaho, Wyoming, and Nebraska, all of which currently intersect with 51st Ave.
While the Ave Q bill has gained some support in the community, it has also elicited severe criticism and backlash. Apart from the fact that all existing state-named streets run from east-to-west, while 51st runs north-to-south, opponents also argue that it would be unfair to give Puerto Rico, an American territory, its own street when 24 full-fledged American states have no area streets named in their honor. Furthermore, both of the Dakotas and both of the Virginias are currently only allotted a single street each to share in West Nashville, while Maryland Ave has been exiled all the way out to Brentwood.
“Should Puerto Rico get a street in West Nashville when Texas doesn’t?!” asked a protester who declined to be named on Charlotte Avenue today. “What aboutFlorida? OrHawaii? Hell, Rhode Island doesn’t even have one, and they’ve got ‘road’ in their name! How is that fair?! This is just pandering on Dixon’s part.”
The council will hear the “Ave Q bill” at tomorrow night’s meeting. Meanwhile, Nashville’s governing body has made no indication that they will finally respond to Washington DC’s formal protest last month over having no representatives on the Metro Council.
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Map of West Nashville found at maps.google.com. Flag of Puerto Rico found at mapsofworld.com.
The Rhinestone 