Railroads gave the Gulch its name: the natural depression you are walking through made this land suitable for the rail infrastructure that defined it for over a century. The Louisville and Nashville Railroad ran through here, and the area was covered in rail yards, repair facilities, and industrial support structures. When the railroad economy contracted and the yards became obsolete, the land sat largely vacant through the 1980s and 1990s — a brownfield in the middle of a city learning to value urban land again.
The Gulch's redevelopment, which accelerated in the 2000s, became one of Nashville's most discussed urban planning stories: a dense, walkable, mixed-use neighborhood built from scratch on former industrial land within a mile of downtown. It became the first LEED-certified neighborhood in Tennessee. Today the Gulch is a cluster of high-rise residential towers, ground-floor retail, and restaurants.
The Wings mural — a pink set of angel wings on a brick wall — has become one of Nashville's most photographed spots, which tells you something about how the Gulch's identity has evolved since the rail yards closed.