Between Third and Fourth Avenues, this narrow passage is Printer's Alley, Nashville's underground entertainment district from the 1940s through the 1970s. The alley takes its name from the printing houses and newspaper publishers that clustered here in the early twentieth century — the Nashville Banner and the Tennessean both had operations nearby. But the identity that stuck was the nightlife that filled the alley after dark when Tennessee's strict liquor laws pushed entertainment into semi-hidden spaces.
Private clubs operating on a bottle-service model hosted jazz, blues, and early country acts in an atmosphere considerably less respectable than the Ryman a few blocks away. Claude Street, Barbara Mandrell, and Chet Atkins all performed here. The district's fortunes faded as downtown Nashville declined in the 1970s and 1980s.
The revival of the 1990s has brought a measure of the old energy back, and the alley now hosts bars and music venues doing a brisk tourist trade. But the ghost of the original underground district — the one that existed precisely because Nashville's public culture was too buttoned-up to accommodate it openly — is still present if you look past the neon.