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.

Dangerous Pole

This utility pole in Portland, KY has been smashed nearly in two and is toppling dangerously, but continues to be allowed to remain in this state. Isn't someone concerned?

14th Street Railroad Bridge

I've always been fascinated with the little building that's perched atop the Fourteenth Street Railroad Bridge just outside of downtown Louisville. I had always thought the bridge abandoned, since I've never noticed any trains crossing it. But reading up on it online just now, I find it's open and doing well under the auspices of the Louisville & Indiana Railroad (whose logo can be clearly seen on the little building). I'd like to venture up there sometime if they'll let me, and take some photos from that vantage point.


The bridge runs along the beginning of the McAlpine Locks and Dam area. A hydroelectric plant is operated here by the always-controversial utility company LG&E, or should I say E.ON; no wait, I mean PPL.




Before being rechristened after William McAlpine in 1960, this was known as the Louisville-Portland Canal since its completion in 1830, and to this day, many people still refer to this area as simply "the canal".

The canal had a convoluted history, which involved costs going way over estimate - due in part to unforeseen difficulties with the solid rock bed near the Falls of the Ohio that needed to dug out completely by workers (including a young Abraham Lincoln, who was part of the construction crew in 1827). President Andrew Jackson refused to give a third injection of government funding to save the project, and it was barely finished with the help of private investors. But by 1855, the government had taken over the canal in a massive buyout.