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Honky Tonk Central, Sept. 6, 2020Photo: Alex Kent
In July, as Nashville was hitting new highs for COVID-19 positivity rates and hospitalizations were surging across Tennessee, TMZ published a video of Lower Broadway with the title âNo-Maskville.â The nearly 90-second clip taken from a car shows what looks like a normal scene for the street on a weekend night â and thatâs what was so confounding about it. Large crowds crammed into small indoor bars, with many more people milling around outside waiting to get in, most of them apparently unmasked. A shirtless man strolls by in the foreground.
It was one of several videos and images from Nashvilleâs main tourist destination that spread around the internet over the past year to the shock and horror of many observers. The images further prompted a question that one might have already felt compelled to ask: What the hell is going on down there?Â