The Lost City Within Louisville (Dayton, Albany: 2015, city hall, how much)

[Ansonyuhas]

Growing up in Louisville, I'm always surprised how much I don't know about the city I call home.

The lost city within Louisville

Anyone know anything more about the history of this area? All I know growing up is going to walnut street baptist church to go roller skating. Ha ha.

[cubedeathk]

Walnut street still exists, it's just muhammad ali boulevard now. A lot of the same buildings are still there too.

[Dayton Sux]

No they are not.

From the article:

Walnut street was hit hard by "urban renewal", the 1950s and 60's federal
program designed to save cities by tearing out blocks of old buildings. In a
short four year period, the seven blocks and more than one hundred buildings
between 6th and 13th Streets were leveled.

In actuality urban renewal leveled one thousand square blocks east and west of downtown (probably more if you count subsequent demolitions and teardowns not related to the official urban renewal program. Inner Louisville is well and truly a lost city. Possibly no other city in the Ohio Valley did such a comprehensive clearance of its inner city to were next to nothing survives of the old close-in neighborhoods.

This is one reason downtown seems so isolated from the rest of the city.

West Walnut was just a part of that huge loss, which was way more than 7 blocks west of downtown

On the west side nearly everything between 6th and 13th (the railroad grade elevation at 13th), Jefferson and Broadway, was leveled. And I recall a bit of the aftermath of that. For example you could stand in front of the Federal Building and look south across totally vacant grassy city blocks to City Hall and the Courthouse. Pretty amazing, when you thing of it...the city was essentially clear-cut.

As the linked story notes only a very few buildings, like the Mammoth Life building, survived (Mammoth Life had offices here in Dayton on Dayton's version of Walnut, West Fifth). Walnut was part of a trend in the African American community during Jim Crow of the black business street....as the blacks improved their economic lot in the decades after emancipation yet still under the strictures of Jim Crow, which segregated them and discriminated against them....they were able to economically support business and nightlife areas.

One of the famous ones was Sweet Auburn in Atlanta:
Sweet Auburn - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Dallas' version was Deep Ellum: Deep Ellum, Dallas - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Louisville's was Walnut Street. But as the link notes all that is gone now.

[Dayton Sux]

If anyone is interested in what this lost city used to look like the photographic archives in the basement of the Ekstrom Library has the pix. The local urban renewal agency sent photographers out to document all the properties they acquired...these B/W glossies were eventually turned over to the UofL archives. The archives have copies in a big three ring binder to leaf through. Great stuff. Sort of.

Also, you can historic aerial photographs of the city showing what was lost.

[Peter1948]

Originally Posted by Dayton Sux

No they are not.

From the article:



In actuality urban renewal leveled one thousand square blocks east and west of downtown (probably more if you count subsequent demolitions and teardowns not related to the official urban renewal program. Inner Louisville is well and truly a lost city. Possibly no other city in the Ohio Valley did such a comprehensive clearance of its inner city to were next to nothing survives of the old close-in neighborhoods.

This is one reason downtown seems so isolated from the rest of the city.

West Walnut was just a part of that huge loss, which was way more than 7 blocks west of downtown

On the west side nearly everything between 6th and 13th (the railroad grade elevation at 13th), Jefferson and Broadway, was leveled. And I recall a bit of the aftermath of that. For example you could stand in front of the Federal Building and look south across totally vacant grassy city blocks to City Hall and the Courthouse. Pretty amazing, when you thing of it...the city was essentially clear-cut.

As the linked story notes only a very few buildings, like the Mammoth Life building, survived (Mammoth Life had offices here in Dayton on Dayton's version of Walnut, West Fifth). Walnut was part of a trend in the African American community during Jim Crow of the black business street....as the blacks improved their economic lot in the decades after emancipation yet still under the strictures of Jim Crow, which segregated them and discriminated against them....they were able to economically support business and nightlife areas.

One of the famous ones was Sweet Auburn in Atlanta:
Sweet Auburn - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Dallas' version was Deep Ellum: Deep Ellum, Dallas - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Louisville's was Walnut Street. But as the link notes all that is gone now.

Dayton, sadly you are 100% correct.However, while most cites lost their streetcar suburbs and surrounding urban hoods, Louisville retained hers with remarkably pristinity (see Germantown, Shelby Park, Portland, Old Louisville, Shawnee, even Clifton and parts of Butchertown, Jeff, and New Albany.

Where Louisville really messed up was the areas immediatley downtown and on its edges.....surface parking for miles. Second street is a great example, but it is especially bad in the sW (government quadrant of dt). The edges of downtown, especially south ("sobro"), southeast (smoketown), west (east russel), and SW edges of dt were cleAr cut. what do all these areas have in common? They were african american for much of their history, and by the 1950s and 60s, fell into utter disrepair.

Why is Nulu so popular? well, it was the one downtown commercial district that spared the wrecking ball. Imagine Nulu's on each side of dt and literally all over. Sad!

[censusdata]

We need to be honest when talking about "Urban Renewl". In reality it's goal was not to revive anything but to economically lynch Black people and separate the races. That's nationwide, not just in Louisville. Find thriving Black financial areas and bulldoze them, then round up all escaped slaves and coral them into huge public housing complexes away from Whites. Then put planned parenthood clinics nearby. Now most Black children could be aborted or placed in prison and all business in Black neighborhoods would be owned by upper income Whites. When Blacks get angry about this arrangement you can portray them as savages needing White civilization as an excuse to further interfere in their affairs.

[Peter1948]

Originally Posted by censusdata

We need to be honest when talking about "Urban Renewl". In reality it's goal was not to revive anything but to economically lynch Black people and separate the races. That's nationwide, not just in Louisville. Find thriving Black financial areas and bulldoze them, then round up all escaped slaves and coral them into huge public housing complexes away from Whites. Then put planned parenthood clinics nearby. Now most Black children could be aborted or placed in prison and all business in Black neighborhoods would be owned by upper income Whites. When Blacks get angry about this arrangement you can portray them as savages needing White civilization as an excuse to further interfere in their affairs.

All....pretty true sadly....

[JaxRhapsody]

Sometimes, I wonder what it would be like if they didn't tear down so many buildings. I've been slowly aquiring a collection of pictures of how the city is now.