Doff your hats and bow your heads, in memory of Lexington's great old Rogers Restaurant which was torn down a few years ago to make room for a boring and neighborhood-wrecking apartment complex.
I remember reading a Lexington Herald-Leader article about the place that said it must have been a bookie joint at some point in its checkered past, because when the last owner did some renovations, he discovered a secret panel that had concealed a secret room filled with telephone-line connections. Oh, to have been here in its glory days.
Support your local 50s-retro old-man saloon, folks, wherever you are. Enjoy 'em while they're here, because they'll all be pulled down sooner or later by the forces of postmodernism so they can put up a bank or a tanning salon or a quickie-mart. It's no country for old bars.
What great photos. I used to walk the tracks behind that area and take photos of all the old warehouses and the train depot. Unfortunately my images were lost.
ReplyDeleteI remember as a kid, before the underpass was built on Broadway, my mom, grandmother and sister where coming back from a trip to Somerset, KY and crossed the tracks in the car. I was asleep in the backseat but was awaken by them talking excitedly about seeing a woman in a long white dress with arms extended to either side floating above the tracks. They were pretty shaken up. Unfortunately i saw nothing.
I later did some research and found out that in the 1800's this area (also near University of Kentucky's Reynolds Building) was the site of a mass Cholera grave. The book i read it in was located in the Kentucky Room at the downtown branch library. It might still be there.
I loved that old part of Lexington. I sorely miss it.