Old Louisville
Old Louisville | |
| File:4th and hill.jpg Old Louisville is well known for its elaborate late-19th century Victorian homes | |
| Location | Louisville, Kentucky, USA |
|---|---|
| Added to NRHP | 1984 |
Old Louisville is a historic preservation district and neighborhood in central Louisville, Kentucky, USA. It is the third largest such district in the United States, and the largest single neighborhood featuring purely Victorian architecture. It is also unique in that a majority of its structures are made of brick, and the neighborhood is said to contain the highest concentration of residential homes with stained glass windows in the U.S.[1] The homes were built in the Victorian-era styles of Romanesque, Queen Anne, Italianate, among others; although there are some shotgun and American Craftsman style houses scattered throughout. There are also several buildings from 15 to 20 stories. If Old Louisville were its own city, it would have the fourth largest skyline in Kentucky.
Old Louisville consists of about 48 city blocks and is located north of the University of Louisville Belknap campus and south of Downtown Louisville, in the central portion of the modern city.[2] The neighborhood hosts the renowned St. James Court Art Show on the first weekend in October.
Despite its name, Old Louisville was actually built as a suburb of Louisville starting in the 1870s, nearly a century after Louisville was founded. It was initially called the Southern Extension. The name Old Louisville did not come until the 1960s. Old Louisville was initially home to some of Louisville's wealthiest residents, but saw a decline in the early and mid-20th century. Following revitalization efforts and gentrification, Old Louisville is currently is home to a diverse population with a high concentration of students and young professionals.
A resident of Old Louisville is known as an "Old Louisvillian".
History
- See also: History of Louisville, Kentucky
Old Louisville is not actually the oldest part of Louisville. In fact, large-scale development south of Broadway did not begin until the 1870s, nearly a century after what is now Downtown Louisville was first settled. Throughout the early and mid-19th century, the land passed through the hands of several speculators, and most of the land was still in its natural state, such as the 50-acre tract between Broadway and Breckenridge, known as Jacob's Woods and a popular picnic ground as late as 1845. A major attraction was Oakland Race Track, near today's Seventh and Ormsby, built in 1839, an early forerunner to Churchill Downs.[3] A mulecar line was extended down Fourth to Oak in 1865.[4]
Country estates had been built in the area as early as the 1830s, and some of Louisville's great early mansions, predominantly in the Italianate style, were built along Broadway, very near Old Louisville, before the Civil War. Development from 1850 to 1870 occurred between Broadway and Kentucky.[5]
The land south of Broadway that became Old Louisville was annexed by the city in 1868, as a part of larger expansion efforts, moving the southern boundary of the city as far south as the city's House of Refuge, an area which is now the University of Louisville's Belknap Campus. A year later, architect Gideon Shryock called the area "a growing and beautiful suburban locality".
Development continued as lots were sold southward down to present day Oak Street, along Central Plank Road, which became Third Street. The neighborhood was simply called the Southern Extension at the time. Growth south of Oak was very slow until the Southern Exposition was held annually in the area from 1883 to 1887.[6]
At the urging of Courier-Journal owner Henry Watterson, the city held the first Southern Exposition, which in the words of Watterson, was meant to "advance the material welfare of the producing classes of the South and West." It was held on 45 acres where St. James Court and Central Park (originally Dupont Square) now are and attracted nearly one million in its first year. The exhibition was opened by President Chester Arthur and featured the first public display of Thomas Edison's light bulb.
After the exposition ended, the area between Oak and Hill Streets rapidly developed in the 1880s and 1890s and became one of the city's most fashionable neighborhoods. According to Young E. Allison, 260 homes valued at a total of $1.6 million were constructed in Old Louisville by 1886. The dominant styles by this time were Queen Anne and Richardsonian Romanesque.[7]
From 1890 to 1905 the area contained one of America's best theatre houses, the Amphitheatre Auditorium, which featured the second largest stage of any theatre house and showcased many of the day's best actors. The structure, located at the corner of 4th and Hill Streets, was razed after its owner, William Norton, Jr. died.
Another form of entertainment in the area was baseball, with the game first being played by 1860 and an early ballpark at Fourth and Ormsby emerging after the Civil War, and by 1875, a new park had been built near St. James Court.[8]
Decline
The area gradually declined as the affluent moved to newer streetcar suburbs, such as Cherokee Triangle, and areas east of Louisville recently connected by railroad, such as Anchorage and Glenview. Accelerated by the Great Depression, many of the large homes in Old Louisville were converted to boarding houses during the 1930s. The Ohio River flood of 1937 caused a great number of the remaining wealthy households to move above the flood plain to East End neighborhoods.
However, the abandonment of Old Louisville by the wealthy was a reflection of changing lifestyles. The homes of Old Louisville were originally built as mansions that would require many servants to maintain, which were no longer affordable to all but the wealthiest by the mid-20th century. Automobiles meant that the wealthy no longer had to live close to their businesses. The lifestyle that created Old Louisville was effectively obsolete.[9]
During the years between World War I and World War II, many of the old mansion homes were hastily converted into apartments to house the growing labor supply, a practice specifically encouraged by the federal government at the time with low-interest loans. However after World War II, with the housing shortage solved by large-scale suburban development affordable to the middle class, vacancy rates in Old Louisville surged. To attract any renters at all, landlords had to lower rents dramatically, attracting less affluent renters and less funds to maintain the homes.[10]
A large section of the neighborhood, from around Kentucky Street to Broadway was razed. Many buildings south of Lee Street, and nearly all south of Avery Street (renamed Cardinal Boulevard) were razed for various expansions to Manual High School and the University of Louisville through the 1970s.
During the 1960s many low income residents downtown who were displaced as a result of urban renewal moved into the newly converted apartments, especially on the north side of the neighborhood. The area was now considered drug ridden and undesirable by most Louisvillians. The very term Old Louisville, first becoming associated with the area in the 1940s, had mostly negative connotations initially, as historian Samuel W. Thomas put it, "In an Era where architectural styles were changing dramatically, old meant out of fashion.".[11]
Revitalization
Many credit Old Louisville's revitalization to the efforts of Courier-Journal writer J. Douglass Nunn. In 1960 he began a vigorous public information campaign about the area, comparing it to neighborhoods like D.C.'s Georgetown and Boston's Beacon Hill. In 1961 Nunn took a leave of absence from his job and started "Restoration, Inc.", a group that restored ten homes in Old Louisville in 1961, spurring interest in preservation that lead many local activists moved to the area. This effort also lead to the first use of the name Old Louisville in print in that year, as a reflection of the interest in preservation. With the activists' efforts the area was made into a historic preservation district in 1975. The area has continued to improve, with new restaurants and shops opening and many students and young professionals moving into the area, a process known as gentrification.
The area is now one of the most ethnically and economically diverse in Louisville. Crime is still a problem, with Old Louisville having more calls for police assistance than any other part of Louisville. However, the Louisville Metro Police 4th Precinct located in Central Park in Old Louisville had 134 officers assigned to it in 2006, more than any other Louisville precinct. Most calls are related to car break-ins and non-violent crimes. Murders are still rare, with one or two per year (compared with over 50 on the West End) concentrated in the northern and easternmost areas of the neighborhood, especially north of Ormsby Ave and East of 1st Street. Overall crime rates for both Old Louisville and the city as a whole increased sharply in 2005 over the 2004 rate, although there was a decline again the first half of 2006.[12]
Residents of the Toonerville section are petitioning the state to place sound barriers between I-65 and Floyd Street, saying that the highway sound reduces property values. They want the project done as part of the refurbishing of I-65 which is currently going on, with ramp reconstruction planned in five years. [13]
Features and attractions
Old Louisville features the largest collection of pedestrian only streets of any U.S. neighborhood. 11 such "courts", where houses face each other across a grass median with sidewalks, were built in the neighborhood from 1891 to the 1920s; most of them are centered off of 4th Street. Belgravia Court and Fountain Court were the first ones to be built in 1891 and are the most well known. Later ones included Reeser and Kensington (1910), which were built with large Victorian styled apartments instead of single family homes; and Eutropia and Rose Courts, which were the last ones built in the 1920s and featured small, single story houses. Many of the courts have been revived during the last several decades, with new lighting and trees planted. These developments are apparently unique to Louisville.[14]
Two of the three major four year universities in Louisville are located adjacent to Old Louisville, with Spalding University to the north and the University of Louisville to the south. DuPont Manual Magnet High School and Presentation Academy are two other well-known schools located in Old Louisville.
The neighborhood contains The Filson Historical Society, Louisville's Central Park, which features the Kentucky Shakespeare Festival every summer, the Actors Theatre of Louisville Production Studio, and the Conrad-Caldwell House. The area of 6th and Hill Streets in the neighborhood was the setting of the best selling novel Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch by Louisvillian Alice Hegan Rice. Today there is a non-profit counseling and services center, named Cabbage Patch Settlement House for the novel, on 6th Street at Magnolia Avenue, which serves children of low income families. During the Christmas holiday season a number of private homes are toured in the Old Louisville Holiday House Tour.
Old Louisville's boundaries are Kentucky Street to the north, Avery Street (Cardinal Boulevard) to the south, I-65 to the east, the CSX railroad tracks to the west. Originally, the neighborhood extended all the way to Broadway on the north, Attwood Street on the south, and Floyd Street on the East; but the northern part was mostly razed for parking lots and light industry, the southern area between Attwood and Avery Streets (now Cardinal Blvd) was razed when the University of Louisville doubled the size of its main campus, and I-65 was built through the area in the 1960s, which created a physical barrier between it and Shelby Park neighborhood.
Although some portions have been razed, many entire blocks remain almost untouched, and historian Theodore M. Brown said "it remains the only nineteenth-century segment of the city that is mostly intact".[15]
Tallest buildings
| Building | Stories | Location |
|---|---|---|
| Baptist Towers | 17 | 1014 South 2nd Street at Kentucky Street |
| Hillebrand House | 16 | 1235 South 3rd Street at Ormsby Ave |
| St Catherine Court | 15 | 114 South 4th Street at St Catherine Street |
| Treyton Oak Towers | 12 | 211 West Oak Street at 2nd Street |
Demographics
As of 2000, the population of Old Louisville was 11,043[16], of which 55.9% are white, 35.0% are black, 6.3% are listed as other, and 2.3% are Hispanic. College graduates are 24.5%, people without a high school degree are 22.6%, and people with college experience without a bachelor's degree are 28.4%. Females are 52.3% of the population, males are 47.7%. Households making less than $15,000 a year are 40.8%; although that is largely a function of the 2,000 to 4,000 University of Louisville students and many part time or retired artisans living in the neighborhood, and that most households are single headed. Ironically, Old Louisville has the youngest median age of any Louisville neighborhood and the highest percent of people between the ages of 20-29 (25%).[17]
Old Louisville's area is 1.88 square miles, its population density is 5,873 persons per square mile.
Regions
Old Louisville is generally divided into several different parts:
- Toonerville is the area south of Kentucky Street, west of Floyd Street, north of Hill Street, & east of 1st Street, named after the Toonerville Trolly cartoons. Gentrification has been slower to take hold here than in other sections, and Toonerville now has the lowest house values and highest crime rates, being home to a number of half way houses. There is currently an effort to build sound buffer walls along I-65 to increase home values along Floyd Street.[18]
- St James Court / Upper Courts (area east 6th Street, south of Magnolia Avenue, west of 4th Street, and north Hill Street
- This area has always been the "elite" section of Old Louisville, and even during the 1970's at Old Louisville's low point retained a large number of affluent residents. This section has the highest home values and lowest crime.
- The Lower Courts (west of 4th Street, south of Hill Street, north of Bloom Street, and east of the L & N Railroad Tracks. Like the Upper Courts, this area has developed with a large number of courts, however the courts here mostly composed of apartment houses and smaller garden houses; and hence it has always been one of the poorer sections
- University (area south of Magnolia Street, east of 4th Street, north of Cardinal Blvd, & west of 1st Street
- SoBro (South of Broadway) is an area north of Magnolia Ave, east of 7th Street, south of York Street, and west of 1st Street. Many buildings there have been razed, and it has been referred to as "the parking lot between Old Louisville and downtown." The area has been a targeted by the city for redevelopment by the city in recent years. The effort is spearheaded by Spalding University, which is located in the area, and a 13-member task force comprised of residents, business people and city officials, formed in 2004.[19]
In addition, there are eight different neighborhood associations, each of which provides different levels of infrastructure on each street. For example, on 4th Street the street lights are designed as old lamp posts and there are ornamented trash cans with a fleur-de-lis symbol at frequent intervals, while on St. James Court there are gas lamp posts, 3rd and 2nd Streets have small light posts on the sidewalks, and several other streets have only basic infrastructure.
Culture
After years of decline with abandoned buildings and high elderly populations, the demographics of Old Louisville began to change noticeably in the 1990s. New residents were not just college students using the area as housing, but also young professionals who wanted to live in Old Louisville. The Courier-Journal's Velocity weekly has reported the area as a hip, emerging center of culture in Louisville. This change is reflected in numerous coffeehouses, restaurants and bars opening in Old Louisville in the 1990s and early 2000s targeting at the younger crowd.[2]
Old Louisville is one of the most liberal neighborhoods in Louisville, as evidenced by the General Election results in 2004, where it voted for John Kerry by a 60% margin and against a proposal to amend the state constitution to define marriage as "between one man and one woman" by a 66% margin (the proposal passed 75% to 25% in Kentucky).[20]
See also
References
- ^ "What is Old Louisville?".
{{cite web}}: Unknown parameter|accesdate=ignored (|access-date=suggested) (help) - ^ a b Fernandez, Maisy (2004-09-29). "What's Old is New". Velocity. p. 8.
- ^ Samuel W. Thomas and William Morgan (1975). Old Louisville: The Victorian era. pp. 14, 55.
- ^ "Walking Tours of Old Louisville". Retrieved 2006-08-02.
- ^ Thomas and Morgan, pp. 24-6
- ^ Yater, George H. (1987). Two Hundred Years at the Fall of the Ohio: A History of Louisville and Jefferson County (2nd edition ed.). Louisville, KY: Filson Club, Incorporated. p. 110.
{{cite book}}:|edition=has extra text (help) - ^ Thomas and Morgan, pp. 68-77
- ^ Yater, p. 112
- ^ Thomas and Morgan, pp. 48-50
- ^ Dan Bischoff, "Behind the Preservation Front", Louisville Magazine, January 1976, p.51
- ^ Wildman (1967). Rebirth and the Road to Vigor: The Renewal of Old Louisville.
{{cite book}}: Unknown parameter|pg=ignored (help) - ^ Lindenberger, Michael (2006-07-19). "Perception vs. reality - Have you heard that crime is up in Old Louisville?". Leo Weekly.
- ^ http://www.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061020/NEWS0102/610200385/1008/NEWS01
- ^ Yater, George H. (1986). "Court Society". Louisville: 21–22.
- ^ Brown, Theodore (1961). Old Louisville.
{{cite book}}: Unknown parameter|pg=ignored (help) - ^ "Community Resource Network". Retrieved 2005-11-18.
- ^ Louisville Magazine, March 2005, p. 33
- ^ Edelen, Sheryl (2006-10-20). "Old Louisville area wants sound barriers at I-65". Courier-Journal. p. 3B.
- ^ Edelen, Sheryl (2006-05-10). "Spalding purchases building". Courier-Journal.
- ^ "Old Louisville.com General Election results".
External links
- Buildings of Louisville
- Cabbage Patch Settlement House
- Conrad-Caldwell House
- Old Louisville Guide (note: site uses slow-loading Java)
- "Old Louisville: Southern Exposition Brought a Wealth of Growth; Homes Stand as a Rich Mix of Stylish Differences" — Article by John C. Pillow of The Courier-Journal
- St. James Court Art Show
- U.S. & Philippines War general Henry Ware Lawton's house at 1511 S. 4th Street