It has been nearly five years since Anthony Warner, a 63-year-old computer repair technician living in Antioch, parked his rigged-to-explode recreational vehicle on Second Avenue in the early hours of Christmas morning; nearly five years since the R.V. blew up with Warner still inside, damaging 65 buildings, causing one to collapse and forever altering the architecture and identity of the historic downtown Nashville street.
Mayor Freddie O’Connell, who was representing the downtown area on the Metro Council at the time, remembered how the holiday joy in his house less than 2 miles away covered up the sound of the explosion.
“Our daughters were literally thundering down the stairs at almost exactly the time of the bombing,” he told the Nashville Banner.
He would learn the news soon enough, through text messages, phone calls and social media videos.
Five years after unexplained, destructive bombing, Nashville’s Second Avenue is coming back
Remarkably, although eight people were injured, Warner was the only person killed by the blast, which has perhaps contributed to the fact that an intentional bombing in downtown Nashville has been relatively under-discussed since. But there were still significant losses, including old restaurants and attractions that loom large in local memories.