Hoping to moderate, or perhaps even reverse, the steadily increasing amount of positive, serious attention being given lately to Music City, a condominium-developer has proposed to build a 32-story downtown high-rise in the shape of a guitar.
An architect’s conceptual rendering of “Strings”
“Nashville’s become far too hip, too culturally relevant in these last few years” explained Patrick Malbane, a representative of the proposed project. “There’ve been lots of positive articles written in countless national newspapers and magazines about what a great place to live this is; people are starting to think of Music City as trendy and cool, instead of automatically stereotyping the entire population as a bunch of backward rednecks who’ve been raised on a steady diet of Jack Daniel’s and banjo music. Major movie stars and rock musicians are relocating here, and doing so willingly I might add; it could be the start of a trend, a renaissance for Nashville’s cultural caché, and we won’t stand for it. We felt it was time to do our part, to do something to bring the ignominious embarrassment back to Nashville, and remind our populace that we are still not allowed to be cool. That’s our pledge to you.”
The condominium high-rise, which would be named simply “Strings”, does not yet have a proposed location, or any targeted opening-date that has been announced; the group behind the project simply states that they are in talks with potential anchors for the building and hope to secure land within the next 60 days. If built, “Strings” would undoubtedly become the most iconic and memorable portion of the Nashville skyline since Bellsouth built “The Batman Building”. Malbane says his group hopes the addition of an enormous guitar to the visual identity of Music City will restore a sense of shameful absurdity to the town’s reputation that has become ever-more absent in recent times.
“These days, everyone’s talking about Jack White, the Black Keys, Nicole Kidman, Food Trucks, 12th South, East Nashville, and Hillsboro Village” says Malbane. “You don’t think anymore of Bill Boner playing harmonica with his mistress on Donahue; you don’t think of the Ernest movies; you don’t think about stupid country kitsch, and that’s just wrong. We pledge to bring that back to Nashville. Working together with ABC’s new soap opera about country music coming this fall, Randy Travis’ arrests, and Big & Rich just being themselves, I think we can all come together to make Music City a laughing-stock again.”
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“Strings” concept art picture found at http://www.bizjournals.com/nashville/blog/2012/08/nashville-developer-wants-to-build.html.
The Rhinestone 