STORIES FROM JEFFERSON STREET
Photographer since 1948 John C. Streator, Jr.
I started shooting pictures when I was 13 — using a Brownie Box Camera — the kind you look down into and shoot. I lived in Jackson Court, a housing project just off Jefferson. And I developed black and white prints on the steps. My mother gets the credit for my first good camera. She took her last $100 and bought me a German camera. I went into the service at 18.
I wish somebody had told me to save all of those old photos. But I didn’t.
A lot of times I was on the scene — but without my camera.
As a professional photographer, I have shot for every newspaper in town. From The Tennessean to every black newspaper here. I shot pictures way back to the Nashville Globe. I think I am Nashville’s oldest and I am still shooting. But I don’t do weddings any more.
As a boy, I knew almost everybody who lived on Jefferson. One thing I want to get straight. Jefferson was never Beale Street. It wasn’t all music and clubs. We had clubs but Jefferson was a neighborhood. If you were coming down the street there was Price’s Pharmacy, then Otey’s grocery, doctor’s offices and then from 21st to 28th it was 90 percent homes. There were lots of churches — a lot of them gone. Schrader Lane Church of Christ and St. Luke’s are still in existence but somewhere else. And of course there was the Ritz movie theater. The Ritz was my second home.
