Posted October 27, 200618 yr No complaints on the night skyline photos, I already know. :-P A hopping place...but no theater? 4th Street was apparently a popular place once, and it seems to be coming back Right next to Ohio A familiar name My composition was going to pot... Jumping to the outskirts....the Louisville Water Company/Plant/Reservoir is a beautiful facility, I wish I would have had more time to snap pics Building on Pope Street Inside... The riverfront parks are separated by a highway... :| Public sentiment Goodbye Louisville, you've been good.
October 27, 200618 yr Neat! "You don't just walk into a bar and mix it up by calling a girl fat" - buildingcincinnati speaking about new forumers
October 27, 200618 yr that was fun -- good work. ahh the 'ol vul, looks like they are trying too hard on that fourth st thing. otoh, that there water facility is riiight purdy.
November 5, 200618 yr Oh boy..i missed this thread. Pretty good tour there, Ink. Id like to kibitz here a bit, if I may. The 4th Street Live was the first attempt in the region for a downtown shopping mall. It was called the Galleria, and extended into the Starks Building and via a skywalk to the old Stewarts Department Store. There was a new Bacons Dept Store (Bacons is now Dillards) too, on site. Plus those two skyscrapers (one was the HQ of Brown & Williamson Tobacco Co.). It was really controversial as there was some great old buildings that was demo'd to build it, and it split the local preservation community as it was considered a key to saving downtown, at that time (though they saved the Prairie School facade of the old Kaufmanns) It was fun when it first opened, but then things went downhill (like Stewarts getting bought out by Hess and closed). So 4th Street Live is an attempt to do something with a big white elephant. The intersection where this is at is 4th and Muhammed Ali (formerly known as Walnut St), which is one of the nodes on 4th as downtown moved south on 4th. One of the things about downtown Louisville is that it is really strung out along 4th street, which was the main shopping street, but hotels, theatres and office buildings where strung out along it, too. Here is downtown around 1970....you can tell it stretches well back from the river. What happened was a big urban renewal effort that removed all the older buildings around downtown. It started with two 1930s public housing projects, Beecher Terrace (for the blacks) and Clarksdale (for the whites...this was the Jim Crow era). Then in the 1960s they did some massive urban renewal east and west of downtown, and also on the riverfront. There was additional demolitions in the 1970s for a convention center, Hyatt, and that Galleria. A bit of a close-up on the east side urban renewal. One of the things that went is was a huge medical center complex, which has become a real driver in the local economy, as this provides services for the entire region, as well as a med school for U of L and some high rise housing for seniors. You can also see the Port of Louisville bulk terminals, warehouses and stuff between the river and Spaghetti Junction freeway interchange. Cincinnati has this stuff too, west of the Mill Creek Valley toward Sedamsville and Anderson Ferry. In Louisville it was right downtown. This was all replaced by that big riverfront park. I also show the very edge of the Butchertown neighborhood, which is probably the oldest left in the city. Here are some shots of what was removed via urban renewal. The UofL archives have phots of every block and structure that was removed..these are from "Views of Louisville", not the urban renewal archives. I recall these areas shortly after they where torn down...lots of grassy lawns and open space around the downtown, and the developement that went in was usually pretty low density. These panoramas show some early skyscrapers. The high rise in the backround of the second panorama is the L&N Building on Broadway, which was the corporate HQ of that road, and an isolated skysrcaper which is a local landmark because of its giant L&N sign on top. Walnut Street shooting off into the West End from about 5th. Lousivilles close in areas looked to be built out at around 3 storys or so, not like OTR, but it was more dense than one would expect. Old rowhouses from the urban renewal area. The style in the second set reminds me of the townhouses of Pittsburgh a bit, with the gable roofs and dormers. And a diagram showing how downtown grew south along Fourth Street from Main and the river south to Broadway, with nodes of high rise construction developing at intersections. Louisville doesnt have a compact downtown like Cincy, its more linear, partly because the city blocks are longer south of Libert Street. Starting in the 1920s Fourth and Broadway, the "Magic Corner" was sort of considered the heart of downtown, with a second "State and Madison" corner at 4th & Walnut, and sort of a govt/finance center near the courthouse two blocks east of 4th on Jefferson. Most of the 1920s high rise construction was around 4th and Broadway, and on Broadway, with big apartment buildings going up. Downtown looking north, from probably 1970. The modern highrise in the foreground is "The 800", apartment buildings. built in 196t5 or 66. The top floor had a radio station, WLRS, which was a pioneer of the FM "progressive rock" format in the late 1960s & early 1970s, before the format went national. A bit of pop music trivia there. The 800 was one of the tallest buildings in the South when it opened. The telephoto shot is deceptive, becuase if you look at the ariels upthread downtown is nowhere nears that compressed. Here is a crop of the same shot, showing some of the buildings. The Kentucky Home Life Mutual was the tallest from 1909 (?) till 1956, then the Commonewealth Building was the tallest till the The 800 was topped off. The Commonwealth was a bizarre design as it is an art deco desgin, with the step-back massing (similar to the Civic Opera tower in Chicago), but stripped...no real detailing. It had a beacon on top, too. Very retro for 1955. I guess they had the plans from before the Depression and waited till the 50s to finish the buidling (the first few floors where built in the late 20s). The Todd and Lincoln buildings fell to urban renewal, the Starks Building is still a good address, and the Heyburn was one of the "Magic Corner" roaring twentys skyscrapers. The Starks and Heyburn where designed by a Chicago firm, and the Starks at least resembles some of those big blocky buildings on Michigan Avenue facing Grant Park (like the Santa Fe Building). Another 4th & Broadway monument from the 1920s is the Brown Hotel 1920s Broadway (looking west) Apartment houses The block of 4th north of Broadway had some of the big movie theatres which of course closed in the 1960s..the Palace, though, always had live acts, even in the 1970s, which kept it alive. Theatre Square was supposed to revive the 4th & Broadway area, but the place just isn't the same to me since they torn down the Commonwealth Building. Another view of downtown, looking south from the river, where they are building the Riverfront Plaza and Belvedere. Probably 1970. 4th Street to the left, shooting south into Old Louisville. Downtown pretty much has re-oriented itself to the area north of Muhammed Ali Blvd now, though there is renovation attempts going on on 4th as old stores are being converted into lofts and such.
November 6, 200618 yr ^Interesting history, my first impression of downtown was that it followed Main Street, which is prehaps the older main drag. I bought a couple old (new) postcards of Fourth Street in the 20's, quite a happening place. Main and Fourth are pretty much the only streets left that haven't seen a significant number of parking lots; their character is still intact and thus, great potential exists.
November 7, 200618 yr my first impression of downtown was that it followed Main Street, which is prehaps the older main drag. Yes, it (and Market) was the main buisness street during the 19th century as it was one block up from the wharf, so developed into a big mercantile center, and then into wholesaling, warehousing, and small manufacturing. By the 1950s the place was sort of an industrial/warehouse/wholesale area, on the road down. One of the big wholesalers was Belknap, which did a big big buisness with the South, selling hardware and all sorts of things to southern retailers. ...most of this was torn down not too long ago, though one building remains for Humana. The street this and the other warehouses/wholesale houses backed up on to was Washington Street, which had this very tight dark and shadowy urban canyon feel to it. In the 1970s that stretch of Main and Washington was the location for little bars and stuff, sort of "offbeat" semi-underground things. Yet Belknaps huge buildings just dominated East Main & Washington Streets.... The Belknaps Show was an event where small store owners came into town from out in the country to see what Belknap was selling in its showrooms... If you had a merchants card you could get things wholesale...my folks got to use my Ma's bosses' card and got some furniture for the house that way, as Belknap wholesaled furnishings as well as hardware, tools, bass boats, bycycles etc.... illustrated company history
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