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Louisville, Ky. (October 15, 2024) – With in-person voting less than three weeks away, Greater Louisville Inc. released the results of its 2024 Metro Council General Election Candidate Survey. 13 of the 26 Metro Council seats are up for election; however several candidates are running unopposed following the primary election...
The post Greater Louisville Inc. Releases 2024 Metro Council Candidate Survey Ahead of General Election appeared first on Greater Louisville Inc..
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Just across some railroad tracks from the Portland Canal sits Lannan Park, a 17-acre public green space. On any given day someone is using its playground, shooting some hoops, or walking along the riverfront.
Joey Hightower has spent a lot of time in the park. He helps with the Portland Youth Baseball League, which practices there. He also worries about their safety getting there.
Between the park and residential streets is Interstate 64, and one of the only ways to get between is to use a bridge over roaring traffic.
“It was put up, I guess, as a, ‘Hey, sorry we're taking your park away from you, but we're going to put this cool walking bridge over it,’” Hightower said.
He’s frustrated that the chain-link fencing at the bottom of the bridge is damaged: there’s enough room for someone to get through and enter onto the highway. He also pointed out that nearby interstate lights have repeatedly been damaged, so much so that the cabinet has now installed solar-powered lights.
Hightower said those issues represent a broader feeling among residents in Portland, a working-class neighborhood where he lived for 26 years: “Nobody cares about us.”
But now, the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet is leading a study that aims to help improve connectivity in Portland between areas on either side of Interstate 64 – the riverfront to the north and the rest of the neighborhood.
The study area spans a large section of Portland and part of neighboring Shawnee: from the Bank Street/Northwestern Parkway intersection in the west to 13th Street in the east, from Bank Street in the south to the Ohio River in the north.
A study area analysis names several obstacles community members face when accessing the Ohio River:
An online survey for the Northwest Louisville Community Connectivity Study is open until Oct. 20. The agency expects to finish the study by the summer, which it says will “result in a phased implementation plan.”
Any changes will require funding. The cabinet is hoping for a grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation’s competitive Reconnecting Communities Pilot Program.
Naitore Djigbenou, a KYTC spokesperson, said the agency has already submitted an RCP grant application for $14.8 million. It would be part of a larger $29.7 million effort to make improvements on area projects already identified in past studies or current feedback, including improvements to the Lannan Park bridge and repairing highway fencing and lighting.
Larry Chaney, the study’s project manager, said this work has been around two years in the making, from initial feedback provided by a youth baseball league volunteer, to two open houses in Portland last month.
“People seem to be excited about the prospect of making some of these connections,” Chaney said, “and making some of the existing connections more attractive and safer.”
Sherry Stewart remembers what Portland used to look like before one of the neighborhood barriers — Interstate 64 — was completed in 1976. She said her father worked on building the highway.
“The majority of people in Portland, when they shop, they go to Indiana,” said Stewart, the editor-in-chief of the Portland Anchor. “So it made it easier to get there, instead of having to go all the way downtown to go across the Second Street Bridge.”
Stewart said she hadn’t given much thought to Ohio River access in Portland — noting that she and her husband have crossed over to Shippingport Island to fish on the river using a bridge that’s open during daytime hours.
But she also recalls childhood visits to part of the riverfront near the current bridge that later became developed.
“We loved going to the river with [my dad] because that was all wooded along the river,” Stewart said. “Before they cleared it all out. You couldn't even see the island.”
Earlier this month, visitors to the Portland Wharf Park were greeted by the sight of bison.
Louisville artist Ken McCormick created the animals, illustrations attached to columns, as part of what he called a “landscape literacy project.” The exhibit took viewers on a journey through the park while promoting the return of bison, which used to cross the Ohio River near the Falls of the Ohio, as part of a conservation effort called rewilding.
He said he wants native plants to be reintroduced to the park, which is one of Portland’s closest remaining connections to the river.
“I would like to see this as being a real star in the city's compendium of really nice parks,” McCormick said.
Portland has long been synonymous with the waterway to its north. It was founded in 1811 and became a hub of shipping activity thanks to its unique spot on the Ohio River, even serving as a rival town to Louisville, which later annexed it.
But the community took hard hits from devastating floods in 1937 and 1945. Portland Wharf Park today stands where part of the neighborhood was abandoned from the flooding, and a levee blocks most of the park from residential streets on the other side.
While that levee stands to protect Portland from the worst of the Ohio River, Mike Neagle also describes it as an obstacle for residents to enjoy the park.
“I brought my mother up here. She has a real hard time with it,” Neagle said of the levee, which has to be scaled by walking up an incline.
The park’s most accessible entrance is a walkway spanning around two blocks and slanted southeast, a nonintuitive path for residents living close to the levee.
Neagle, a past president of Portland’s neighborhood association, said while climbing the levee isn’t friendly to older and disabled residents, the park itself is a “little secret” for the neighborhood to enjoy.
“Waterfront Park is really nice, but it's all curated. And this, every time I come here, it's different. Like, the river moves, the puddles are different…just all of it,” he said.
Over the years, multiple studies and reports have been made exploring challenges and possibilities for Portland Wharf Park and the wider neighborhood. KYTC’s study references several of them, which go as far back as 1983.
One of those is a master plan for the wharf park prepared for the city’s Parks Department in 2002. It recommends creating a flood wall in the levee that residents could enter the park through, and reconstructing historic streets and sidewalks lost to the flooding using granite and stone.
“As you can see from those other studies, it's hard to keep some of those promises,” said Chaney, the project manager for the cabinet’s study.
While he said the current planning study has a “sky’s the limit” approach, making changes will require deciding what options are viable and getting buy-in from groups like the Louisville Metro Government.
“Our intent is to come up with something, and seek funding, to make some of these things happen that we've been talking about for 40 years,” Chaney said.
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Archive and Special Collections Department and Belknap campus and Features and Historical and UofL history and walking tour 4:37 pm
By Laren Hines
The University of Louisville was established in 1798, but was it really?
Dr. Tom Owen explained the lay of the land in a series of campus tours last Tuesday and Wednesday. Owen’s resume spans decades of work in history, politics, religion, and environmental activism, all of which he continues to perpetuate through his current archival work in Ekstrom Library.
His recent pair of tours of the Belknap Campus are part of his ongoing series “Tom Owen’s Louisville,” where the professor shares the history behind Louisville’s most iconic landmarks and buildings. His campus tours are an annual staple for many, sprouting from his contributions to the “University of Louisville: Belknap Campus” book.
The professor began the tour on the eastern steps of Ekstrom Library, notably named after English professor Willian Ferdinand Ekstrom. Owen immediately set himself apart with a lively cadence and quick-witted interjections, captivating a crowd of roughly 20 people on Wednesday.
He detailed the history of the relatively young building, all the way down to the 1850s-era cemetery it was built upon. Shipp Street, which now runs as a diagonal sidewalk through campus, once separated the “original” western half of campus from the east.
Owen moved briskly around The Quad and introduced the main through-line of the tour: Eight campus buildings, still in use by the university, that once made up Louisville’s Industrial School of Reform — Jouett, Ford, Gardiner, Gottschalk, Brigman, Oppenheimer, and Patterson Halls, as well as the Playhouse Theater.
The school housed delinquent and dependent children starting in 1854, and later expansions were made to accommodate girls and children of color. Buildings served as dormitories, classrooms, libraries, and laundry facilities, and the Theater served as a chapel. The property was abandoned in 1920 after the school merged with a different childcare facility, and subsequently purchased by the University of Louisville three years later.
The tour then stopped by the Parish Courtyard, named after Charles Henry Parish Jr., who served as the first Black professor at U of L.
Other notable stops included Schneider Hall, which was built on the former grounds of a Naval mess hall. The building was U of L’s main library upon its completion in 1955; it currently holds the Department of Fine Arts. Miller Hall, which houses the Information Technology Center, was the original Student Activity Center in 1959.
A detour to Grawemeyer Hall brought up another interesting discovery: the University’s original “birthday” was in 1837, when Louisville’s Medical Institute opened. “Founders’ Day” celebrations were based on this opening, including the centennial celebrated in 1937. The founding date on the university seal was originally 1846, in alignment with the acquisition of the school’s current name.
However, a researcher at the time found evidence of intention to establish the school 39 years prior as the Jefferson Seminary: There were enough physical assets of the Jefferson Seminary to benefit the University of Louisville. It was acknowledged in 1948 that the charter year was, in fact, 1798. Accordingly, UofL celebrated its 225th anniversary last year.
Owen swung back around to a more recent landmark near the Belknap Academic Building (BAB) – the 2020 Pavilion, an outdoor oasis dedicated to those whose classes and commencement were cancelled by the COVID-19 pandemic.
He cleverly found ways to tie up the tour’s tidbits; along the street walks near the BAB were commemorative pieces of the Naval barrack he had pointed out prior.
Tom Owen’s passion for Louisville’s rich history is a distinct landmark in itself. He is commonly called a “pied piper” of the city, whose storytelling and service is treasured by museums, government, and citizens alike. His Belknap Campus tour is just one notch in a well-decorated belt and a unique reminder of the historical landscape students traverse on a daily basis.
To keep up with Tom Owen’s Louisville, check out his Facebook or look out for one of his many historical city tours.
The post “Tom Owen’s Louisville”: A historical walk through the Belknap Campus appeared first on The Louisville Cardinal.
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Our Power to Prosper Accelerator is all about giving minority-owned businesses the skills and connections they need to move to the next level and grow here in Greater Louisville. The accelerator, valued at $15,000 per individual, is offered free to participants through the generous funding of Papa Johns and Suntory...
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