Late Night at the Parthenon

The Parthenon in Nashville is a replica to the ancient Parthenon in Greece.  Originally built for Tennessee’s 1897 Centennial Exposition, this replica of the original Parthenon in Athens serves as a monument to what is considered the pinnacle of classical architecture. and has just recently added a 47′ statue of the Goddess Athena.

Not that I’m a big history buff, but growing up in Nashville, this building is probably akin to the Empire State Building if you grew up in NYC.  What a great work of architecture and art.

In a few weeks I have scheduled my first photo shoot in Centennial Park since the 70s, so I thought it might be a good idea to check out the scene as is is today.  Just a few year ago some tornadoes took out some of the old trees in the park, but for the most part it looks just about the same as it did when I was running around the place in high school.

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My first night shot of the Parthenon in years. Brings back old memoires...

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Night shot of the columns.

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These doors have some significant meaning in our family.

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A distant uncle of mine, F.Eugene Freeland, was an architect in Nashville during the time the Parthenon was built.  The story passed down through the family is that these doors were manufactured and shipped to the site, but they were too heavy to mount them on the hinges.  So it was F.Eugene who came up with the brilliant idea of setting the doors up on blocks of ice, putting them into place and letting the ice melt to achieve the desired effect.

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It’s all fun and games til somebody loses an arm… Lesson learned, don’t mess with Athena!