Downtown Louisville Highlights

The Galleria is being transformed into something called "4th Street Live", recollecting Downtown Louisville's heydays, centered around 4th Street. Nothing will ever recreate the vitality and energy that charged through that street when my mom was a teenager; but, so goes the state of things for most mid-sized American cities, whose core started spreading out to suburbia after World War II. What 4th Street Live is, basically, is an entertainment complex situated in the heart of Downtown, in the hope to keep some office workers after hours, and also lure some suburbanites away from their comfort zones. So far, it's been rather successful, if the crowds I've encountered are any indication; but, it doesn't capture my imagination the way looking at what 4th Street used to be, does. It's sort of like a spaceship landed smack dab in the middle of Downtown Louisville, and I'm wondering who all these strangers are. LOL

Looking North, toward the riverfront, taken from a stairwell, on the ascent to the balcony...


The next two pictures are facing the North entrance...



Shot from North balcony, looking toward riverfront, 4 blocks away...


South balcony view...


The next two pictures are just miscellaneous interior shots...



Construction proceeding on main floor...

Over the Christmas holidays, a friend and I took a self-guided tour of some of Downtown Louisville's attractions. One of which, was the notorious Galleria, and I've just uploaded 3 pictures, you'll find links to below, which were taken that afternoon. Thanks to Fred Taylor and his digital camera for these three Galleria under the wrecking ball photos.

My parents and grandparents had 4th Street. My generation has the growing cultural districts of Market and Main Streets in Downtown Louisville.

The year was 1981. Hawley-Cooke, a now defunct local bookstore, had decided to call it quits after a year in the city's ghost town of West Main Street. Now, over 20 years later, I look back and say they were ahead of their time. That area, once a deteriorating stretch of 18th and 19th century mercantile buildings, is now alive with renovation and filled with workers and residents, eager to experience the urban "flavor" of city living. There are always trailblazers, and I salute the founders of Hawley-Cooke Booksellers for their vision. Too bad it took so long for others to recognize the treasures which appear so obviously to me in these historic blocks.

The Galleria, built in 1982, after years of hand-wringing about what to do with the decline of urban shopping and movie-going, was heralded as the "heart of the city". Almost immediately, the truth was self-evident. A re-hashed city planner's idea to revitalize an old urban core was a failure. Suburbia's homes, strip malls, and "convenience marts" had become the enemy of a once vibrant Downtown; and something new and different needed to be adressed if Downtown Louisville were ever to again be the thriving center of activity it was up until the 1960's.

Enter Cordish Company, of Baltimore. An urban re-developer which has several name-brand cities under it's belt as "re-energized", if not "re-vitalized", Cordish was hired in the late 1990's to replace the unoriginal and uninspired Galleria. Unfortunately, the same old, same old, 20 something years later seems to be what is rising from the rubble. New paint, and a Hard Rock Cafe will NOT invigorate the city center. I just wonder what what happened to imagination? I suppose it's a lot riskier than a new name("4th Street Live!") and a handful of well-subsidized tenants.

This new incarnation of the Galleria is sadly another failure before it's even opened. Louisville's former Mayor, David Armstrong, was a good man, and I truly believe he had his heart in the right place, but somewhere along the way he was sold down the river. Now mayor, Jerry Abramson, can only wait and see, like the rest of us, what happens next. But I think you all know...