Louisville in an Evening
Life has recently taken me to
Louisville. The largest city in Kentucky and the county seat of Jefferson County, Louisville's early beginnings was centered around the commerce and industry along the Ohio River. Today, it is much diverse, known more for its Kentucky Derby, Louisville Slugger and its ever-expanding urban growth.
I had a free evening and opted to photograph some of the newer developments in the city. I began by exploring the
Phoenix Hill neighborhood east of downtown. Bordered by Market Street, Preston Street, Broadway and Baxter Avenue, the Phoenix Hill is one of the oldest neighborhoods. The neighborhood was a part of Preston’s Enlargement, land granted to Colonel William Preston in 1774. It was annexed into Louisville in 1827 as Uptown and became a thriving working class German enclave prior to the Civil War.
One of the more impressive architectural wonders if the
St. Boniface Catholic Church on East Liberty Street. Established in 1836, St. Boniface was named for the Apostle of Germany. It remains the second oldest Catholic parish in the city and the first built specifically for German Catholics.
In 1939, the Clarksdale Housing Complex, the first public housing complex built in the state, was completed. The largest development of its type in the region, it consisted of 58 buildings. After years of decline, Clarksdale was demolished in 2004 in favor of
Liberty Green, a 29-acre, $233 million redevelopment project. The mixed-income, mixed-use project, stretching for six city blocks, consisted of 176 units for its first phase and 218 units for its second phase.
View northwest from Clay St. and Muhammad Ali Blvd.
View northeast from Clay St. and Muhammad Ali Blvd.
Along Muhammad Ali Blvd.
East Liberty St. and Clay St.
Along Muhammad Ali Blvd.
Along Hancock St.
Along Hancock St. at Marshall Ct.
Along Hancock St. at Liberty St.
Other initiatives in Phoenix Hill include the development of the East Market District, or NuLu, along Market Street. There is much potential and much more work to be done.
Below: Jefferson St. and Hancock St.
<hr />
To the west is
Portland, which lies along a bend of the Ohio River below the Falls of the Ohio. Formerly an independent town, it was the largest of the six major settlements at the Falls. It declined in prominence during the latter half of the 20th century, but it's proximity to downtown has led to a development renewal.
Part of its potential is its large warehouses. For instance,
B.F. Avery and Sons, at one point the largest plow manufacturer in the world, was located along West Main Street.
And down the road and around the corner is the former
Walker Bag Company, originally home to the Du Pont paper mill and an artesian well. The complex is being rehabilitated for the Kentucky Peerless Distilling Company.
<hr />
Nearby is the
West Main Commercial Historic District in downtown. Much of West Main Street was derelict by the 1960's, with it's ornate cast iron facades boarded up and abandoned. A plan to address the deterioration came in 1965, which called for rehabilitation of the existing buildings and some new construction, but it was not until the 1990's that renovations came to full speed. The area now includes the Louisville Slugger Museum, the Louisville Science Center, the
Kentucky Center for the Arts, the
Muhammad Ali Center and the
Kentucky Museum of Arts and Craft.
The district does boast some impressive building stock outside of West Main - including the
Snead Manufacturing Building.
The Snead and Company Iron Works was an ornamental and structural cast iron manufacturer was founded by the Snead family in 1849 as the Market Street Architectural Foundry. By 1857, the Market Street Architectural Foundry was supplying cast iron for many buildings in the south, including its home city of Louisville. The business name was changed to The Snead and Company Iron Works and Charles Snead became president of the company. By 1898, Snead and Company was one of the largest ornamental and structural cast iron manufacturers in the nation.
The Snead and Company Iron Works was destroyed by fire in 1898. The company’s operations was restablished in New Jersey.
The
American Architect reported in 1909 that Snead planned to construct a $200,000 investment building on the lot of the former foundry. It hired D.X. Murphy & Brothers to design an eight-story structure. The new building was constructed in 1909 and 1910. For years, the building housed different firms and offices, such as the National Biscuit Company, the Webster Loose Leaf Filing Company, the Kenton Company and garment manufacturers.
The building was rehabilitated into three floors of offices, 33 residential condominiums and glass-blowing studios and art galleries in 2001 at a cost of $14 million.
Across the street is the stark
ZirMed Gateway Towers, comprised of a 10-story and a 12-story high-rise. It is named for ZirMed Inc., a major tenant that occupies 40,000 square-feet in one of the buildings.
Constructed in 2008 and 2009 for $25 million, the complex was designed by City Works for City Properties Group.
<hr />
I ended the day with a jaunt around the east side of downtown, notably to capture
Preston Pointe.The eight-story, 172-foot high structure, clad in stainless steel, was erected from 2002 to 2004 but is difficult to capture from its rear side. Standing on the curb and peering upward, I was able to capture the clean steel set among decorative trees and a barren parking lot that could really be better used.
Nearby is
Waterfront Park Place, first residential high-rise to be completed directly along the Ohio River.
I ended the day capturing
Nucleus Building I at East Market and South Floyd streets at what was referred to as the Haymarket block. It is a part of the University of Louisville Foundation’s Nucleus Innovation Park Downtown and is a part of a planned four building complex that includes shared green spaces and parking garages. Workers were just wrapping up their tasks for the day when I walked by.
Immortal. I seriously can see already. That one as a bunch of others (in the West so far...) will be featured in fucking heaven. 
Linear Mode
