Downtown Public Library

For this stop at the Downtown Public Library, you can go inside for a bathroom or water break or simply listen and continue on your walk. When the main branch of Nashville’s public Library in downtown reached its capacity for books and materials as well as for public programming, Donna Nicely, the director of the Davidson County Library system, and Margaret Ann Robinson, the library’s board chair, worked with Nashville’s Mayor Phil Bredesen and the Metro Council to raise funds to build this first-rate urban library which opened its doors in 2001. While other cities were closing downtown libraries and moving collections to suburban libraries, these two women had the vision for a downtown library that was “hailed as a mecca for learning.” Take the time to go into the library’s great hall and climb the stairs to the second floor. 

Across the mezzanine you will find the Special Collection section. It houses the Nashville Room, Civil Rights Room and exhibit, and Woman’s Suffrage Room and exhibit. To learn more about the fight for a woman’s right to vote, the Suffrage Room includes a timeline, biographies, and interactive screens. On the second floor is also the children’s department. The third floor includes the Grand Reading Room designed to look like the public library in Boston. The building that you see here is yet another reason that Nashville claims the nickname “The Athens of the South.” It also exemplifies what has been accomplished by the vision of women working in partnership with local government that has helped make Nashville a regional center for education. In 2017, the Nashville Public Library was named the Library of the Year as a model for libraries that provide services and programs to meet the needs of all Nashvillians. The Nashville Public Library is on several other Nashville Sites tours, so check them out. 

Cross over Church Street and continue walking up Seventh Avenue. On your left, you will notice a building marked Young Women’s Christian Association. Stop here for your next two stops: the YWCA and Polk Place.