Heard this story on 91.7 the other day about the historically-black Dunbar neighborhood on the western edge of Madisonville that was demolished to make way for the charming Red Bank Expressway:

 

http://wvxu.org/post/madisonvilles-dunbar-neighborhood-gone-not-forgotten#stream/0

 

I had never heard of this neighborhood before and a quick Google search turned up nothing except the above story. Anyone know anything more about Dunbar or have any images of what it looked like?

I've lived in Madisonville for going on 12 years, and hadn't heard of it either.  So I wanted to find out where, exactly, it was located, as I live "on the west edge of Madisonville."  So I looked at some historic aerials to try to spot a 200-home neighborhood in the path of the current RBE, and didn't see anything I would think was Dunbar.

 

Anyone else know anything?  I reached out to MCURC through their FB page but haven't heard anything yet.

I'm finding just one street of ~12 houses where the I-71/Red Bank interchange is. That's hardly a neighborhood.

I believe it was the area that is now the Coke Bottling Plant, the 5/3 Operations center, etc. Between Duck Creek and I-71.

 

Edit --- I think it was in the area will Gorilla Glue is now --- I have heard it called Corisca Hollow

 

http://historicaerials.com?layer=1970&zoom=17&lat=39.154856995080294&lon=-84.40404295921326 

 

 

If that's it, then it wasn't the highway that killed it - it was land use changes. That happens everywhere where land values are depressed and/or prime for redevelopment?

Yes that's it.  One description mentions it was where Tompkins Avenue intersects Red Bank Road (not expressway).  Red Bank Road was called Dunbar Place between Erie and Madison a hundred years ago.  No way there were ever more than a few dozen tiny houses at most, and even if they were all horribly overcrowded it would still be a stretch to get even to a few hundred residents.  None of the little side streets show on the detailed USGS maps from 1912, but they do show on the Sanborn maps as a small collection of very tiny houses and a couple of little churches. It looks like it was all mostly still there even into the early 2000s, and really none of it was in the path of the expressway.