Flower Bed

This waggish gag was seen in someone's yard in the Whipps Millgate area.

Giant IOU

One from my Visual Slushpile photo blog:


As I've ranted in my blogs before, I'm of two minds on graffiti - having been both a graffiti artist and a property owner whose building was defaced by graffiti in my contradictory past, I take each example of this "art" on a case by case basis. I can't condone any graffiti that defaces someone's home, someone's place of business, or a historical structure. Especially when the work is really, really, really lame, such as this "IOU" tag is.

But I have to say, this one makes me scratch my head in wonderment: how the heck did they do that? It seems spray-painted but the letters are impossibly tall, and I don't think they dragged a scaffolding out there just to do this. I'm guessing they duct-taped the sprayer button down on a can tied to a long stick?

Otis Hidden

I was curious about the old Otis Hidden Company building in Portland, KY (West of Louisville), and did some Googling.


Turns out Mr. Hidden was in the business of Cabinet Hardware & Floor Coverings, both imported and manufactured, and they once had deluxe retail/office headquarters at 326 W. Main in Louisville, which is now the Hubbuch & Co. building next to Actors Theatre. The factory in Portland must have been for manufacturing and storage.



Mr. Hidden's name also turns up in some sort of legal squabble between a "Kentucky Furniture manufacturing Company" and the Masonic Savings Bank circa 1896, and a genealogy site mentions an Otis Hidden from California who married one Serena Fuqua. Could there have been more than one Otis Hidden? Evidently so, because here's another one who married a Judith Ladd and lived in Vermont.

Consider the Cobblestones

One from my Visual Slushpile photo blog:


In downtown Louisville, under every street, the original cobblestone streets are hidden beneath a layer of pavement. And beneath those cobblestones is soil that has not been seen by the eyes of man since the mid-1800s.

Anything that someone chose to hide under a cobblestone in the 19th century, or buried in the ground even before the cobblestone streets were laid, has been hidden very well indeed for a long, long time.

Just you think on that.

Stolen Italian Icon Found at Speed Museum

Very interesting piece today from the New York Times about a painted gatefold icon that was stolen in Italy in 1971. 40 years after it vanished, it turned up in a dusty back storeroom of Louisville's Speed Museum.

The Speed's not to blame, though - they acquired the piece from a reputable gallery in New York for $38,000 in 1973, just two years after it had been purloined. How it got to that gallery is a matter that is still being investigated by the Department of Homeland Security. (Seriously? Since when do they handle 1970s cold-case files of burglaries in Italy?)

According to the article:

Under a settlement negotiated by the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York and announced on Monday, the Speed will soon turn over the painting to Homeland Security, which will transfer it to Italian cultural authorities. (The collector who owned the painting in 1971 has since died, and the authorities will be responsible for determining who is entitled to it now.)

Before that, however, the museum will show the painting, which it has not exhibited for at least a decade, from June 9 to July 3 as part of a small exhibit that will, according to the museum’s director, Charles L. Venable, “contextualize it in a larger world of provenance research and repatriation of works of art.”

Storm, 5/23/2011

Two summers ago, I found myself caught in a spooky pre-tornadic storm as I made my way East on Shelbyville Road and then moved sideward to Westport. It happened all over again today.



Photographs rarely convey just how creepy some storms can be; though these examples aren't as dramatic looking as some of my other storm images, the knowledge that this was part of the same weather system that destroyed Joplin, MO gave me extra incentive to hustle home ASAP.

Genny's Diner

One from our Whitewashed Windows and Vacant Stores blog:


Although I rarely ate there, Genny's Diner was a Louisville tradition and I will miss it. Their deep-fried "frickled" pickles were a unique local item which you don't see every day.

Owner Frank Faris, after years of battling with the city over his property next door, has been put out of business. Part of it is his own fault: he steadfastly refused to make ordered upkeep improvements to the home, despite court orders to do so. But I think Faris got a raw deal in the end: when he announced his intention to bulldoze the house to make more parking spaces for his diner, a group of concerned citizens got together and colluded to hurriedly designate the dump a "historic home", specifically so he couldn't do what he wanted to with his own property.

And when he still refused to cooperate, a judge ordered him to sell the house. And when he couldn't find a buyer, the judge actually ordered him to give it away for free. Can a judge really do that? Well, this one did, and I didn't hear many people squawking about it.

The way the whole thing turned out for Faris leaves a very unsavory taste in my mouth. It's true that his own behavior is why it all ended in drama and Faris' arrest, but I nevertheless sympathize with Faris for trying to conduct himself as if he was still living in an era when people were allowed to do what they wanted to with their own personal property. Those days are gone, and with their passing we've all lost something bigger than fried pickles.

A gourmet ice cream place called the Comfy Cow is slated to take over the Genny's Diner location. Ironically, they're going to bulldoze it and start over with a new building of their own.

Denunzio's Double Statues

Off the top of my noggin, I'm hard-pressed to think of another instance where I've seen a grave with two larger-than-life statues, one above the other on a second tier.


This is Joseph Denunzio in Louisville's St. Louis Cemetery; from the dignified pomp of his marker's presentation, you'd be easily led to assume this is the grave of the former mayor of Louisville who shares a similar name - but actually, this Joseph Denunzio was apparently an importer of fruits and vegetables, and they were related. He founded the Denunzio Fruit Company at 108 W. Jefferson Street, which continued to exist at least into the 1940s.


But according to John Kleber's Encyclopedia of Louisville, "his grave monument at Calvary Cemetery shows him in the pose of an auctioneer with produce at his feet." Waitaminute. This is St. Louis Cemetery, not Calvary, and I don't see any produce at his feet, Boss. What gives? Has Kleber made a typo (hey, it happens)? Or could this be our third Joseph Denunzio? This must be the guy, because he does look rather auctioneer-like, and he's clearly leaning against a stack of fruit crates.


The second statue in the stack is the traditional woman-with-anchor Statue of Hope, from the Catholic Virtues (Faith, Hope, Charity) which are in turn derived from 1 Corinthians 13:13:

And now abideth faith, hope, and love, even these three: but the chiefest of these is love.

I'm not sure how "love" and "charity" (caritas) got morphed into it along the way, because the actual original text says ἀγάπη, which is a concept unto itself and loses something in the translation. (ἀγάπη, or Agape, has been defined as "an intentional response to promote well-being when responding to that which has generated ill-being" - in other words, outdoing negativity by throwing more positivity at it.)

Since the traditional Catholic representation of Charity sometimes depicts a woman with children gathering fruit, I would have thought that would have been a more appropriate choice for Louisville's premier fruit purveyor.

Hopscotch House

The Kentucky Foundation for Women operates a fantastic retreat for women called Hopscotch House, located in a remote rural area East of Louisville. And when I say remote, I mean remote. Getting there like is something of a challenge, like following the route to Snuffy Smith's cabin - going through a winding maze of roads that lead to a narrow path filled with potholes, rocks, and cow-catchers. And in the wintertime when the steep roads are covered in ice, it's nearly impossible. (I know all this because I have given rides out there to a friend who makes use of their facilities, and helped her haul all her stuff inside.)

The Hopscotch House is strictly for women, and even more specifically, if their own self description is to believed, it's really mostly about feminist women:

"Hopscotch House was purchased by the Kentucky Foundation for Women in 1987 and was first used by a group of women writers known as the Wolf Pen Writer’s Colony. In the early 1990’s Hopscotch House became available to other women artists and women’s groups. Over the years, Hopscotch House has served thousands of women including artists, activists, feminists, eco-feminists, art critique groups, drumming circles, quilting groups, social justice groups, girls’ empowerment groups, arts organizations, and social service organizations.

Hopscotch House retreats and residencies provide time and space for Kentucky women artists to create in an environment that inspires, nurtures, and rejuvenates. Stays there encourage self-exploration and personal growth through the land and house resources and the company of other women... Hopscotch House is also a place to engage with a community of feminist social change artists and activists who convene in a nurturing environment. Many people find the sharing of common interests and goals in their work to be a great source of support and inspiration."

But fear not, those of you out there in reader-land who are either cursed with, as Robert Louis Stevenson said, "the misfortune to be a man", or are among my female compatriots whose idea of feminism has more in common with Dita Von Teese and Poison Ivy Rorschach than, say, Susan Brownmiller or Trish Wilson. I'm here to take one for the team, and go behind the scenes with a pictorial tour to show you what few male eyes have ever seen.

Firefighter's Funeral

Tuesday afternoon I walked out of Bakery Square in Butchertown to find all Washington Street lined with fire trucks and police cars, all with lights flashing. Thinking some disaster had just occurred, I started taking pictures and tried to find out what was going on. As it turned out, I ran into a friend who's with the Florence, KY police department and he explained that a memorial service was taking place at St. Joseph Catholic Church for a well-loved firefighter, and they were giving him the full send-off in style.

Latest Kentucky Floods of 2011

While the world watches and waits to see what further ill effects may occur from the Destruction of the Birds Point Levee, the storm fronts keeps moving in, rain keeps coming down, and flood waters keep rising like in the old Johnny Cash song.

Union County is essentially closed off and surrounded by high water now. According to the Henderson Gleaner, Union County schools and postal services are almost completely out. The Union post office has had to make an emergency relocation to nearby Henderson County.

Livingston County is under emergency evacuation as I type this. The evacuations in Smithland are mandatory and police-enforced, while residents of the towns of Iuke, Ledbetter, and Tiline are also being urged to evacuate for their own safety at this hour. Kentucky State Police have set up a temporary command post at Grand Rivers, and will be organizing all Fire, ambulance, and rescue operations from here.

In Fulton County, many worried citizens have been fleeing Hickman. Gov. Beshear has been monitoring the area in person, and said on Tuesday that blowing up the levee in Missouri was the right decision, because it's helping to take the pressure off Kentucky's own floodwalls.

In McCracken County, The Republic is reporting "The National Weather Service in Paducah forecast a crest of 55 feet, or 3 feet above flood stage, on the Ohio River in Paducah".

Kenton County was declared a disaster area last week when floodwaters closed a dozen roads and tornadoes ripped through the area. They, along with most of Northern Kentucky, are listed on today's flood advisory again as I type this.

Calloway County was, according to thenews.org, under a flood warning until this morning, and it will still take a lot of time for the water to go down. There is water over many roads, although none are closed down at this time.

In Jefferson County, flood waters crossed River Road and lapped at the edges of the Yum! Center and at Butchertown's flood walls. Today the water levels of the Ohio River are receding, but heavy rain is expected in the forecast and it remains to be seen whether the flooding here is truly over.

Anchorage Trail Compass Mosaic

The Anchorage Trail, a beautiful park donated by John and Annette Schnatter, is one of my very favorite places to go on my early-morning coffee walks each day. I'm perpetually fascinated by this giant mosaic compass that can be found in the midst of it.




I don't know why it's here - I mean, there's really no danger of getting lost on the trail (there are even permanently mounted maps on posts at regular intervals), but hey, who needs a reason? It's simply interesting for its own sake and doubly so when you're listening to R.E.M.'s "Stand" on your mp3 player. (And if you're of the Muslim faith, I suppose it could make a very handy makeshift Qibla in a pinch.)

John King

Last week, while meandering through St. Louis Cemetery in the Highlands of Louisville, I took a couple shots of this imposing grave marker with peculiar architecture. I just liked the look of it.

Tonight, just out of curiosity, I googled the fellow - John King from County Mayo, Ireland - and hit the motherlode. Even with geneaology sites on the web closing in the gaps on many family trees (thanks in large part to the Mormons and their jaw-droppingly complete historical archives in their Granite Mountain Records Vault), sometimes a search isn't very fruitful. But this time, a search brought up this page which tells us more than we could ever want to know about John King.

He married Kate Fox, who was also from County Mayo, Ireland. Then she died on December 28, 1884 and he soon remarried, to Anna Cain - who, interestingly, was also from County Mayo, Ireland.

He had five sons and one daughter. He worked for L&N railroad. He could not read or write but spoke English. In 1900 he lived at 1727 Tyler Avenue, and by 1902 he had moved to 1846 Todd, according to old city directories. At the time of his death due to Bright's Disease in 1924, he was living at 1847 Lytle Street.

John's son William went on to work for L&N railroad himself, lived at 608 31st Street and then 1304 Everett, married Caroline Theodora Droppelman, and died in 1965 at the age of 86 at Norton Hospital. He had Basilar artery thrumbosis from arteriosclerosis and prostate cancer. He attended St. Agnes Catholic Church and was buried at Calvary Cemetery.

John's son Joseph married Delia Burke (from County Mayo, Ireland!) and worked as a "day laborer'. He died in 1927 when he fell off the running board of a moving car.

John's son Timothy worked for a distillery and lived at 1757 Mellwood Avenue. He married an Irish woman named Bridget Haskin. He died of heart problems in 1927 and was buried at Calvary Cemetery.

John's son Patrick was a traveling salesman who married Margaret Agnes Kahoe. Though he lived to 1961, we actually have less data on him than his more short-lived brothers.

The timespace continuum gives me a weird shivery feeling sometimes.


None of this, however, tells me why John's grave is so darn cool looking.

Fallen Trees and Flooded Streams

Last night's storm (it's still last night to me even though this post is dated Thursday because I'm typing it at just a few minutes after midnight, see) was something, wasn't it? Me and Krampus were holed up here on the old JSH Plantation, listening to the hurricane-force winds and emergency sirens, getting ready to take shelter in the center of the house if need be. I spent a couple hours bouncing public and private messages back and forth on Twitter with various peeps-o-mine, which kept my mind occupied until the storm abated enough that I finally fell asleep around 3am.

This morning (Wednesday morning) when I got up, I found that Anchorage had become a landscape of devastated trees - including one that fell on my car and gave it some minor dents and scuffs. Could have been a lot worse, it's obvious to see.






Additionally, the creek is now swollen so far over its banks that vast areas of the nearby park are totally flooded. Between the fallen trees and flood waters, some of the trails are completely impassable now.

Whiskey By The Drink

I love these old "Whiskey by the Drink" signs, from those bygone Don Draper days when women and television sets wore bunny ears. This one was sighted in Butchertown, at the corner of Mellwood and Brownsboro where it becomes Story Avenue.

The AEGON Center

The tallest building in Kentucky is Louisville's AEGON Center, designed by Philip Johnson and John Burgee, the architects who brought the world the Puerto de Europa, the PPG Place in Pittsburgh, the Crystal Cathedral of Garden Grove, and the infamous Lipstick Building at NYC's even more infamous corner of 53rd and 3rd.


According to Wikipedia, "the building is constructed of reinforced concrete, as opposed to the steel construction usual for buildings of its height." Interesting. You may make of that what you will. It was completed in 1993, and has held up just fine since then.


Although you can't see it in the close-up photo above, there is a way to get the absolute top of the building by way of a secured ladder-tower leading from the center of the dome's interior, going up to the pinnacle.

There's a photograph of it here on the official U.S. Coast Guard flickr site. I'd love to get up there and take some photos myself.

Hobbs Chapel Cemetery

After recently having written about the Hobbs Chapel Facade only to learn that there's a cemetery hidden in the woods behind it, I just had to trudge back there again and see it for myself.



As cemeteries go, this one's in really good shape now, though from what I've read online, such wasn't always the case. There's evidence that vandals and losers have made a mess of the place in years past, judging by the headstones that are cracked and seemingly have been cemented back together again. There's also a bunch of broken headstone fragments - many of them quite old - laying in a pile. Apparently no one knows where they go or what to do with them.



There are many interesting markers out here. I especially enjoy stones that tell a little about the person. Here we have the eye-catchingly arabesque design for Ludwell Dangerfield, who died at the Battle of Chaplin Hills, KY at the age of 20 on October 8, 1862.

Then there's William Wade Marshall, born at Marshall's Corners, Pennsylvania in 1837 and died here in Anchorage in 1870. The grave of Samuel Nock doesn't tell us where he died but does mention he was born in Nova Scotia.