The Arcade

Want to get something to eat, mail a letter, pick up a prescription, or watch artists at work? Tucked between 4th and 5th Avenues is one of Nashville’s greatest hidden treasures. If open, turn left into the Arcade and take a step back in time to a 120-year-old, monumental structure. Walk through the Arcade as you listen or read. In 1902, the Arcade opened as Nashville’s first shopping center and one of the first covered shopping centers in North America. The Arcade replaced the former Overton Alley between 4^th and 5^th Avenue. Realtor and businessman Daniel C. Buntin wanted to construct the city’s first enclosed shopping area and modeled its Greek Revival architecture after the Galleria Vittorio Emmanuele arcade in Milan, complete with Palladian entrances, open air shops, and a glass ceiling. 

Now, the Arcade is home to the vibrant arts community of downtown. It is at the center of the downtown Nashville Arts District, where the Art Crawl takes place the first Saturday of every month. All seventeen galleries in the building participate in the event. So what’s the oldest venue in operation in the Arcade? Since 1903, the U.S. Postal Service, which has maintained an operational post office in the Arcade—opening a year after the structure was completed. Though it has been modernized, just imagine the hustle and bustle that’s taken place in this space—when the main form of communication was mail and telegraph. The Arcade’s Post Office was slated for closure in 2009, but efforts by thelocal history and preservation community led the Postal Service to keep the Arcade location open. 

Other historic tenants in the Arcade include the Peach Cobbler Factory and the Peanut Shop—first opened as Planters Peanuts in 1927. Now independently owned, the Peanut Shop remains one of only four Planters stores still in operation. The Walgreen’s Pharmacy was a site of the earliest sit-ins during the Civil Rights Movement, where students from Fisk, Meharry, and Tennessee State University staged non-violent protests at the drugstore lunch counter on February 20, 1960. Nashville became one of the first major cities in the South to begin desegregation of public and private facilities. To learn more about the Arcade take the Downtown Public Arts and Murals, Capitol and Church Architecture, Civil Rights Sit-Ins, and Food for Thought tours on Nashville Sites!

If the Arcade is open, walk through to the opposite entrance on 5th Avenue. Cross at the crosswalk and stop at the Nashville Sit-Ins historical marker to hear your next stop. If The Arcade is closed, turn LEFT and walk back to Church St. then turn RIGHT. Walk up Church St. to 5th Ave. then cross it and turn RIGHT. Stop in the middle of the block at the Nashville Sit-Ins historical marker just beside Woolworths on 5th.