1816 Hayes Street
Dr. Goldner was a prominent Jewish Vanderbilt physician and medical school faculty member who was deeply troubled by the effects of racism and segregation on his patients and community. He and his wife participated in the downtown lunch counter sit-ins and he was one of the first physicians to integrate his waiting room. Dr. Goldner was a member of The Temple, where he chaired its Social Justice committee, and served on the board of the Gordon Jewish Community Center (JCC). As a young doctor, he lived through the 1958 bombing of the JCC and he would have been heavily influenced by Rabbi William B. Silverman’s encouragement of his congregation’s commitment to social justice. Dr. Goldner’s c. 1955 Mid-century Modern office has recently been for sale and stands in an area teeming with cranes as new fast-paced and large-scale development creeps into this Midtown neighborhood. As both a prime example of Nashville’s quickly vanishing inner-city mid-century architecture and an important site tied to local civil rights history, the Dr. Fred Goldner Office deserves to be recognized and preserved.
