Former City Market entrance and dome -Nashville TN
Description
The old Nashville City Market was constructed in 1936-1937 with funding from the Public Works Administration (PWA). The chief contractor for the project was Foster & Creighton Construction Company. Project cost was “almost a half a million dollars” (Van West, 2000, p. 81).
The building’s design by Henry Hibbs is “Adamesque Revival Style” with a classical temple entrance and a dome just behind. The walls are brick over reinforced concrete. The window frames and sashes are steel and the roof is copper. The original interior had five-foot wainscoting of glazed tile and terrazzo flooring. It included stalls, restaurants, and rest rooms. The market’s construction was part of efforts “to redesign and update the old town square of Nashville.” (Van West)
The building was later renovated into the Ben West Municipal Building and is currently used as city offices (the interior has likely been completely overhauled). The words City Market are still visible, however, stamped in concrete over the entrance.
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Former City Market entrance and dome -Nashville TN
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Former City Market entrance and dome -Nashville TN
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Former City Market - Nashville TN
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Original interior of the city market - Nashville TN
Source notes
Van West, Carroll. (2001). Tennessee's New Deal Landscape: A Guidebook. Knoxville, TN: University of Tennessee Press.
https://digital.library.nashville.org/cdm/search/searchterm/Covered%20markets
Nashville Public Library Digital CollectionsTennessee: A Guide to the State (1939). Federal Writers Project. American Book-Stratford Press: USA.
Helen Tangires (2008) Public Markets. New York: New York: W. W. Norton & Company.
Project originally submitted by Susan C. Allen on September 13, 2015.
Additional contributions by Richard Walker.
We welcome contributions of additional information on any New Deal project site.
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