Jefferson – The Kaintuckeean

Fun With Flags: Kentucky Edition

I’m kind of a flag nerd. I’ve always had a thing for flags. When I was little, I’d always get the flag for the state or country I was visiting. Sometimes, I’d even correct an improper flag display. And I love Dr. Sheldon Cooper Presents Fun With Flags segments on CBS’ Big Bang Theory!

So when I saw the cover of today’s Herald-Leader, I was excited to see the prominent display of the flag for the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government prominently placed above the fold. And below the fold was the headline: “Does Lexington need a memorable city flag?“

The short answer is a resounding YES! But the longer answer is, of course, more interesting. The article notes two groups (Lexington firefighters and 8th graders at Lexington Christian Academy) that are pushing for a new flag and promoting a few of their own designs.

The H-L article prompted me to watch an 18-minute TED talk by Roman Mars which I’ve embedded below. Mars discusses the elements of a good flag and gives examples of both good and bad flags. Countries are pretty good at making strong banners, but American cities are pretty horrible at the task. Mars even featured Lexington’s own flag as a “bad flag” example, which is what prompted the firefighters mentioned above to take on their effort.

What makes a good flag? According to the North American Vexillogical Association, or NMVA, (far bigger flag nerds than I), there are five key principles:

1. Keep it Simple
2. Use Meaningful Symbolism
3. Use 2 or 3 Basic Colors
4. No Lettering or Seals
5. Be Distinctive or Be Related.

All of this makes sense. In fact, these are pretty good design principles overall. So how do Kentucky flags stack up on this scale? The Kentucky flag itself is, like the Lexington flag, an SOB (seal on a bedsheet). It’s just a blue background with the state seal on it. Pretty boring, indistinctive, and not simple (in that the details of the seal itself are complex).

Other cities in Kentucky vary…

Louisville

In 2004, the NMVA conducted a survey ranking the flags of American cities. The two best were Washington DC and Chicago, but I was really surprised to see that Louisville was ranked #9! Go Louisville!! (In case you were wondering, Lexington ranked #112 in the same survey.)

Really, it is a great looking flag! But wait… Louisville merged with Jefferson County in 2003 to form a Metro Government.

Louisville’s old flag

Surely wisdom (and better design) prevailed and the old flag was retained? Nope. Instead, the ‘Ville now flies this lesser banner which is, predictably, another SOB:

Louisville-Jefferson County Flag

Ugh. Another example of Kentucky just not being able to have nice things.

Frankfort

Frankfort also makes the NMVA Survey at #140 (out of 150). I can see why.

Bowling Green

Bowling Green didn’t make the NMVA Survey. It’s current flag isn’t an SOB, but it is close. If it were just the fountain, it might work. But I’m not so sure you could read the text if it were flying in the breeze at 100 feet away.

Like Lexington, Bowling Green is contemplating a new flag. There’s a movement afoot to change the flag to this distinctive banner:

The green background is self-explanatory for a town called Bowling Green. The gold represents prosperity, the blue the Barren River, and the grey represents the roads that connect in Bowling Green. It’s a good, distinctive flag that follows the 5 Principles.

Hopefully, something good will come Lexington’s way. The Portland (OR) Flag Association maintains a list (including Bowling Green) of municipalities in America looking at improving their flags. I imagine Lexington will soon make the list!

(and here’s that TED talk from Roman Mars I promised…)

Demolition Watch Updates Offer Good News During National Preservation Month

How about some good Friday news?

There are a couple of updates from the week worth mentioning, especially given how popular this site’s #DemolitionWatch posts have become. So from the Commonwealth’s two biggest cities, I offer some potentially positive outcomes to places on Demolition Watch.

Here are the original #DemolitionWatch posts related to the Jefferson and Fayette County structures. Updates are after the jump.

Louisville Water Company Building

Louisville Water Company Building, ca. 1913. University of Louisville Archives.

First, from Louisville. Last month, I derided “Possibility City” for lack of imagination or possibility with regard to three demolitions on a block slated to become the home of an Omni Hotel. The post warned that “still standing on the block are the old Water Company building and the old Odd Fellows Hall.” Louisville has recently been spotlighted by the National Trust for Historic Preservation as the city is turned into a 3-year ‘living laboratory’ so it didn’t make sense for this development to end horribly.

And it appears that it won’t as there’s good news from Louisville Mayor Jim Fischer per the Louisville Courier Journal. The city of Louisville will commit $1 million toward moving all or part of the historic Water Company building. Per the Mayor’s website, “we are committed to saving all or parts of the historic old Water Company Building.” The $1 million has already been set aside by the city to help prepare the site for the Omni Hotel project, and Fisher “would rather use that money to help save some of the building.”

The mayor also outlined three potential outcomes:

Move the entire old Water Company Building;
Move the portico, the façade, and 25 feet of the side walls; or
Move only the portico and place it on public land

We’ll see which outcome is the route taken. I’ll be pulling for #1!

Peoples Bank in Lexington

Peoples Bank rendering.

A lot of movement and a significant amount of progress. You may recall the deadline of May 21 was yesterday. The deadline was tied to a vote by the Lexington Center Corporation’s board meeting.

During that meeting, the LCC board unanimously voted to allow the iconic Peoples Bank to be relocated somewhere in the Rupp District. A few locations have been mentioned with the most prominent being at Maxwell and South Broadway.

With that approval, the developer has “generously provided the project with another extension” according to the Facebook group, People for the Peoples. As previously noted, the estimated cost to move the Peoples Bank is $850,000 with funding already being committed by the city and a matching grant from the Warwick Foundation. The $300,000 matching grant requires $250,000 of public support with over half of that having already been raised! Details on how you can help are available here.

Laurel Catto, chair of the Warwick Foundation’s board, was reported in the Lexington Herald-Leader as saying that “this is far, far more than just saving a building. This is a living, breathing monument to our community’s values for respect and inclusion. … (The bank) was designed as a public space.”

[DEMO WATCH]: Decades of Demolition on Louisville’s Water Company Block Continued Over the Weekend

Demolition underway in Louisville on Saturday, April 11, 2015. The Ville Voice.

The headline from Page One reads: “All Hell is Breaking Loose in Louisville.” And although the Kaintuckeean tends to be quite Bluegrass-centric, the historic preservation news coming from the Commonwealth’s most populous place is alarming.

Metro Louisville demolished multiple structures on Third Street in downtown Louisville on Saturday, including the the Typewriter building, the Falls City Theater Company, and the Old Morrissey Garage. These properties have on multiple occasions been listed on Preservation Louisville’s Most Endangered Historic Places list.

The Morrissey Garage was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1983 as the Bosler Garage (its original name). Built in the Romanesque Revival design in 1919, the garage has been described as “an important local example of utilitarian architecture and of the local awareness and respect for the automobile industry in the early years” of the 20th century. Jeffrey Scott Holland photographed Morrissey and shared some of the images on Unusual Kentucky.

A 1974 Sanborn map shows these structures standing alone in a sea of parking lot, but the structures have persisted. When acquired by the city of Louisville in 2009, an inspection revealed that structures were in “poor condition.” By neglect, the 2015 inspection “concluded dramatic deterioration” according to the Louisville Metro.

When I read those words, all I could think was that this is an awful case of demolition by neglect.

And it looks like Preservation Louisville agrees. Marianne Zickuhr, executive director of PL, said that “It is unfortunate that Metro could not have found a way to save these buildings before safety became an immediate issue.” She went on to say that “It’s just unfortunate that the owners were allowed to let it sit for so long and let it deteriorate.”

Yes, Louisville utilized the old ignore-the-problem-until-it-is-unsafe-and-then-tear-it-down solution to the block. And where public safety is truly at play, demolition can be the right solution. But I’ll always call for at least providing the opportunity to see what, if anything, can be salvaged.

And according to The ‘Ville Voice, that’s what preservationists in Louisville wanted. The city, developers, and preservationists had been engaged in talks about the future of the block. Within the past couple months, the parties toured the block and communicated about what could be conserved or repurposed. As late as March 13, preservationists were suggesting preservation and reuse of façades, salvaging architectural details and repurposing parts of the more structurally-sound structures remaining on the block.

Then “on April 9 the city responded to suggests provided by preservationists … with an emergency demolition press release. No warning, no notice, gave no one any time to raise funds to save what could be saved. Then radio silence.”

The silence lasted two days and was broken by the sounds of demolition.

An Archway from Morrissey Garage. The Ville Voice.

Louisville bills itself as Possibility City. But I don’t see much imagination or possibility in what happened over the weekend. Zickuhr also said that “Demolition by neglect is not a sustainable way to develop and evolve as a city.”

After this weekend’s wrecking ball, still standing on the block are the old Water Company building and the old Odd Fellows Hall. Elements of these structures could be incorporated into the development plans for the block: a 30 story Omni Hotel that will be Louisville’s third tallest skyscraper. Development costs for that project are nearly $300 million.

Preservation of the façades alone could have offered the Omni project a unique and historic streetscape along Third Street along with unique, classical entrances to its facilities. It could have been held up as a model of preservation and urban design.

But instead, Possibility City went the way of the wrecking ball.

Preservation Louisville suggests that Louisvillians let your voice be heard. Click here to find out more!

6 Kentucky Sites Listed on National Register of Historic Places

On March 17, 2015, the Secretary of the Interior approved the inclusion of 6 Kentucky properties into the National Register of Historic Places. The properties are located in Campbell, Jefferson, Kenton, and Pike Counties and represent Kentucky’s manufacturing, residential, entertainment, and educational past.

These six sites were previously profiled here and here. And you can read more about the National Register of Historic Places here.

Marianne Theatre

Marianne Theatre Marquee. NRHP Application.

This Bellevue, Kentucky, theatre was designed by Registered Architect Paul B. Kiel in 1941 in the Art Deco and Moderne Style. It was built by owner-manager Peter L. Smith in 1942 in the center of the 600 block of Fairfield Avenue in Bellevue, Kentucky. Already on the National Register as part of the Fairfield Avenue Historic District, the property is being indvididually listed to draw additional attention to it.

There once were over 60 neighborhood theaters in northern Kentucky and the Marianne was one of the finest.

Charles Young Park and Community Center

Charles Young Center. NRHP Application.

Across the street from Lexington’s Isaac Murphy Memorial Garden stands the Charles Young Park and Community Center. This part of Lexington’s East End is undergoing a renaissance and the Charles Young facilities stand to be a landmark in this change.

The park has been owned by the city since 1930 and the one-story brick veneered side-gable community center is an icon of Third Street. During Jim Crow-era Kentucky, segregation dictated separate community facilities for blacks. According to the nomination, the “Charles Young Park provides an important physical and spatial indication of the existence of the East End community, and the importance that a public place holds for any community— for recreation and civic gathering.”

Lynn Acres Garden Apartments

Circa 1950 Aerial of Lynn Acres. NRHP Application.

The 66 two-story apartment buildings in Louisville’s southside were constructed between 1947 and 1950. The complex includes a variety of 12-, 8-, and 4-plex units with greenspace behind each structure intended for children’s play but which is now used by many residents for gardening.

The brick construction and side-gabled roofs had architectural attention in their design – a rarity in today’s residential apartment design. But perhaps the layout of the buildings deserves the most attention as the green space between them and the connected streets are key to good community design.

Louisville, Gas & Electric Co. Service Station Complex

LG&E Service Station Complex. NRHP Application.

Also known as the Edison Building, this gas and electrical service station was constructed ca. 1924. It stands on a 4+ acre lot at Louisville’s 7th and Ormsby, and all of the acreage is included in the nomination. Even before 1924, the site’s utility was related to generating power.

The main structure is cube-shaped and constructed primarily of poured cement. The south façade is the most decorated of the four sides and it is divided into 9 bays. The three-story structure was built with the potential of expansion to 8-stories, but demand was never realized for the additional square footage. A red brick gate house, ca. 1890, also stands on the property.

Hellman Lumber and Manufacturing Co.

Hellman Lumber. NRHP Application.

On Covington’s 12th Street, stands the Hellman Lumber and Manufacturing Co. This warehouse was built from 1886-1894 and the company is one of the community’s oldest businesses dating to 1879. Without a doubt, many of Covington’s structures have been built with wood that has passed through this facility.

The nomination form describes the main warehouse as “an intact two-story two-bay side-gabled brick warehouse-style corner commercial building that is approximately 14,000-16,000 square feet. The original foundation is wet-masonry limestone.” The building and its story represent an intact representation of the era’s booming lumber industry.

Elkhorn City Elementary and High Schools

Elkhorn City High School. NRHP Application.

Near the heart of Elkhorn City are its schools with the complex (6.8 acres) including 6 structures, of which 3 are contributing to the historic character: a 1938 WPA high school, a 1956 elementary school, and a 1956 music instruction building.

Elkhorn City lies in Pike County about 20 miles from the seat of Pikeville. During the academic life of these buildings as academic facilities, 1938 to the 1980s, the manpower required for coal mining increasingly declined even when demand was high due to mechanization of the process. The nomination form provides that “These facilities demonstrate a continual dedication to public education within this rural Kentucky community. Their existence displays a successful development from rural school facilities into a modernized educational system.”

6 Sites Recommended for the National Register (part 2)

Yesterday, I profiled 3 of the 6 sites recommended for inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places by the Kentucky Historic Preservation Review Board. The sites were:

Marianne Theater in Campbell County;
Charles Young Park and Community Center in Fayette County;
Lynn Acres Apartments in Jefferson County;
Louisville, Gas & Electric Co. Service Station Complex in Jefferson County;
Hellman Lumber and Manufacturing Co. in Kenton County; and
Elkhorn City Elementary and High Schools in Pike County.

Below, I’m briefly going over the last three properties on the list: the Louisville, Gas & Electric Co. Service Station Complex, the Hellman Lumber and Manufacturing Co., and Elkhorn City Elementary and High Schools.

All 6 nominations which will be forwarded to the National Park Service (NPS) for final determination of eligibility. A decision on designation will be rendered within 60 to 90 days.

Louisville, Gas & Electric Co. Service Station Complex

LG&E Service Station Complex. NRHP Application.

Hellman Lumber and Manufacturing Co.

Hellman Lumber. NRHP Application.

Elkhorn City Elementary and High Schools

Elkhorn City High School. NRHP Application.

And finally, a little bit more about the National Register of Historic Places:

The National Register

Owners of National Register properties may qualify for state and/or federal tax credits for rehabilitation of these properties to standards set forth by the Secretary of the Interior, as certified by the Kentucky Heritage Council, or by making a charitable contribution of a preservation easement. National Register status does not affect property ownership rights, but does provide a measure of protection against adverse impacts from federally funded projects.

The National Register is the nation’s official list of historic and archaeological resources deemed worthy of preservation. Kentucky has the fourth-highest number of listings among states, at more than 3,300. Listing can be applied to buildings, objects, structures, districts and archaeological sites, and proposed sites must be significant in architecture, engineering, American history or culture.

6 Sites Recommended for the National Register (part 1)

Marianne Theatre (Bellevue), Lynn Acres Apartments (Louisville); and the
Charles Young Center (Lexington). Images from respective NRHP Applications.

Last week, the Kentucky Historic Preservation Review Board approved six sites for listing in the National Register of Historic Places, nominations which will now be forwarded to the National Park Service (NPS) for final determination of eligibility. A decision on designation will be rendered within 60 to 90 days.

The sites were:

Marianne Theater in Campbell County;
Charles Young Park and Community Center in Fayette County;
Lynn Acres Apartments in Jefferson County;
Louisville, Gas & Electric Co. Service Station Complex in Jefferson County;
Hellman Lumber and Manufacturing Co. in Kenton County; and
Elkhorn City Elementary and High Schools in Pike County.

A summary about the first three is included below and the final three will be covered in a post tomorrow. But first a little bit about the National Register and the process for getting a property listed:

The National Register

And now for the properties …

Marianne Theatre

Marianne Theatre Marquee. NRHP Application.

There once were over 60 neighborhood theaters in northern Kentucky and the Marianne was one of the finest.

Charles Young Park and Community Center

Charles Young Center. NRHP Application.

Lynn Acres Garden Apartments

Circa 1950 Aerial of Lynn Acres. NRHP Application.

The other 3 sites nominated by the Heritage Council will be discussed tomorrow on the Kaintuckeean.

Louisville’s Most Endangered Properties

Preservation Louisville has released the names of the community’s most endangered historic properties.

Vacant & Abandoned Shotgun Houses, which are in dwindling supply in the city
Colonial Gardens, described as a “dilapidated reminder of the South End’s colorful past, historic value and uncertain future.”
Mid-century modern structures are not old enough to be recognized by enough people for their signficance and too few steps are being taken to preserve the era’s architecture
Ouerbacker House, 1633 W. Jefferson Street, ca. 1860-1865.
Corner store fronts of retail establishments from antebellum to midcentury were staples of American life as we shopped in the local general store.
Roscoe Goose house, 3012 S. Third St., ca. 1900, was occupied by the jockey who rode 91-1 Donerail to victory in the 1913 Kentucky Derby.
Lampton Baptist Church, located at 850 S. Fourth Street, was founded in 1866.
Doerhorfer house, 422 W. Broadway, was designated a city landmark in 2011. Despite the designation, the 2 1/2 story frame structure remains at risk.
Historic Old Clarksville Site in Indiana is where George Rogers Clark built his cabin and mill. It is a key part of Kentuckiana history and must be protected for future generations.
Water Co. Block downtown Louisville contains many older structures utilized by the old water company. A mixed use development proposal puts them at risk.

Louisville Elementary School on National Register

Charles D. Jacobs Elementary School (1932) – Louisville, Ky.
Photo: T. Dade Luckett (NRHP Application File)

Earlier this year, the Department of the Interior approved the application of the Charles D. Jacob Elementary School for inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places. Located at 3670 Wheeler Avenue in Louisville’s south end, the two structure elementary school has seen little exterior change since the 1930s.

The first building was constructed one hundred years ago, in 1912. The two-story structure features both craftsman and colonial revival elements and is a fraction of the size of the much larger 1932 addition which is connected to the original school by a breezeway. This larger structure was described upon its opening by the Courier Journal as “a buff brick building of modern architecture” which today exemplifies the traditional architectural style of educational buildings of the era, i.e., art deco/moderne.

Charles D. Jacobs Elementary School (1912) – Louisville, Ky.
Photo: T. Dade Luckett (NRHP Application File)

The land on which the school sits was formerly owned by Charles Donald Jacob, for whom the school and its neighborhood are named. The 1912 structure was a seven-room schoolhouse originally known as Jacob’s Addition Community School until 1922 when the neighborhood was annexed by Louisville and the school by Louisville City Schools. The name of the school was changed to Charles D. Jacob Elementary when the addition was added in 1932.

Charles D. Jacob was a four-term mayor of Louisville being first elected in 1872. Jacob’s father was the president of the Bank of Kentucky and thus Jacob was raised in a family of wealth. An elegant man, he always wore a yellow rose and sought to beautify and improve Louisville. To these ends, he is considered the father of Louisville’s parks. Iroquois Park was originally named Jacob’s Park after the mayor who envisioned the city’s great parks. Jacob’s administration oversaw the construction of the city’s first Home for the Aged and Infirm, the installation of the city’s first granite and asphalt streets, and the conversion of street lighting from gas to electricity. At the school’s 1932 dedication, a school board member said of Mayor Jacob: “I don’t think that the history of Louisville will show the name of a man who gave more service more unselfishly that that of Mr. Jacob.”

For more on the unique architectural combination found at the Charles D. Jacob Elementary School, be sure to read the National Register application file.

Source: NRHP Application File, courtesy Ky. Heritage Council.

ky120: Jefferson County Courthouse (Louisville, Ky.)

Jefferson County Courthouse – Louisville, Ky.

The Jefferson County Courthouse in Louisville has probably one of the more interesting stories behind its construction. It’s a bit of a Frankenstein’s monster of historic buildings.

Shryock Design for Jefferson Courthouse
(Photo: Clay Lancaster Slide Collection; KDL)

Construction began on this building – Louisville’s fourth courthouse – in 1837. The original architect was none other than Gideon Shryock, the notable architect profiled on this site a number of times. But Shryock’s original design isn’t really reflected in what you see above. The building was to have a six-column Doric portico, a cupola and additional porticos on the side.

Legend has it that the building was designed to draw the state capitol away from Frankfort, but such efforts were obviously unsuccessful. This movement’s primary proponent was Senator James Guthrie. The ultimate failure of making the building the new state capitol led to the building being known as “Guthrie’s Folly.”

The most interesting thing about this building is how it was affected by financially difficult times, in this instance the panic of 1837. I think it’s easy to categorize financial difficulties in the construction world as some sort of modern invention, but the empty Centrepointe lot in Lexington has historic company. Shortly after construction began, Shryock was either fired or left the project. In financially tough times, construction stalled. The building was only partially finished when the city and county governments took up occupancy in 1842. The courthouse stood unfinished until 1858, when construction was taken over by Albert Fink, a bridge designer and engineer for the L&N Railroad. Fink simplified Shryock’s design and almost all of the current elements are his. When the courthouse was completed, the Louisville Daily Journal called it an “elephantine monstrosity.” Ouch.

Jefferson County Courthouse, ca. 1930
(Photo: Herald-Post; KDL)

It’s amazing how things can change. During urban renewal efforts in the 1940s, there was discussion about demolishing the building. Architect Frank Lloyd Wright offered a defense of the building, stating that though these are not the sorts of buildings that should be built today, it was important to preserve them.

The building was renovated in 1905 after a fire, and another major renovation was completed in 1981, in which many inappropriate architectural alterations were removed. The building was listed on the National Historic Register in 1972.

To me, the most interesting thing about this building is how easily it gets lost in downtown Louisville. Though once stood as the center of the community, it is totally overwhelmed by the skyscrapers that now surround it. I had read about its history years ago, but was confused when I was downtown and couldn’t find it. A couple of months ago, I was in downtown Louisville and realized that I had walked right in front of it. Crazy.

EV: The Big Four Bridge

The Big Four Bridge from Waterfront Park – Louisville, Ky.

The Big Four Bridge was for a long time an old abandoned rail bridge on the east end of downtown Louisville. The Big Four gets its name from the Big Four railroad – the nickname for the now defunct Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis Railroad. For years, the bridge sat in the middle of the river, with both the Indiana and Kentucky approaches having been removed in 1969 and sold for scrap after the railroad fell into disuse.

Construction began on the bridge in 1888. During the construction, an astounding 37 people died. Two accidents with pier caissons caused drownings, and a horrible accident occurred when the collapse of construction equipment killed 21 workers. The bridge was completed in 1895.

In recent years, there has been a move to convert the bridge into a pedestrian and bicycle bridge. This conversion has been in the works for years and has proceeded at a snail’s pace. What you see above is the completed entrance ramp on the Kentucky side, though no similar entrance exists on the Indiana side. The entrance was closed when I visited, but looked quite impressive from the ground.

(PJWB side-note): In the 1960s, architect Jasper Ward proposed a housing development on the Big Four. The Louisvillian-Manhattanite at Broken Sidewalk has closely followed the developments at the Big Four Bridge.