Approach To Commonwealth's Image In The Coming Years

I, as many others as well, have noticed over the past few years that the University of Kentucky has greatly enhanced their sports facilities. The new softball field for the ladies and the new soccer complex along Alumni Dr brightly advertise the UK logo both day and night. And prior the this year's football season, the relocated tail-gating lot which cleverly hides an underground rainwater runoff control system was completed, but there is much more to do.

The City is currently in the process of constructing an enlarged and more modern senior citizens center on a portion of the Idle Hour Park property. This should allow the City to transfer, back to the University, the present site which they received in a land swap for the right-of-way of College View years ago.

From my memory, College View was a street of modest to small frames houses running from Lexington Avenue to Rose St. The present entry to the parking lot for the Joe Craft Center and the Coal Lodge is the sole remaining vestige of the this roadway. There was small confectionery store on the northwest corner with Rose and a storefront addition to a house anchoring the other end at Lexington Ave in my youth.

What I cannot recall is the section of deteriorating shotgun houses that lined Adams St, which paralleled College View on the south nor the ones which lined Euclid Ave. They were built when this area was developed as Adamstown and faced a city park. This city park was traded for the University's predecessor, the Kentucky Agricultural and Mechanical College's, interests in Woodland Park The only remaining evidence that this street ever existed is the driveway along the south side of Blazer Hall and the access to the rear of the Papa Johns/Qudoba lot off of Rose St.

Concerning the little storefront at College View and Lexington Avenue, the Lafayette studios collection at the http://exploreuk.uky.edu/ has a couple of images and the 1934 Sanborn Fire insurance map clearly shows a retail space. Owned by a man named Johnson, he merely called it Sampy's

In November of 1946, G.L.“Sampy” Johnson applied to the City and County Planning and Zoning Commission for a change in the zoning for 200 College View. The request was from a Residence “B” district to a Business “B” district and I can only assume that his reason was to make his existing store comply with the rules. The Commission's Zoning Committee also concurred and the item was moved to a public hearing.

Objectors at this hearing were led by Dr McVey, the University president, who “offered objections on behalf of the university -- not to the operation of a grocery store...” since the store served the existing residents, “but to the changing of the entire area as set out by this Commission because of the probability businesses being established there over which the University have no jurisdiction.

Strangely enough, in this time period the Planning Commission was of the habit (or proclivity) of suggesting and recommending additional properties besides the requested area. In this case they may have included the whole street but, since there is no attached map, the entirety is unclear. Was this the University using its influence beyond it's campus borders?

A Mr. H. B. McGregor also appeared before the Commission saying that he “objected to such change because he would dislike seeing any homes being torn down and converted or built into businesses.” An early preservationist obviously. Upon consideration of evidence the petition was refused.

I an only wonder how Mr McGreror felt just two years later when the University called upon the City to assist in clearing the “slums” of Adamstown and allow the school to erect their new sports arena, Memorial Coliseum on that spot. Dr McVey and his successors now had jurisdiction of the area.

What does this have to do with my opening remarks? Little more than that the University is not shy about using its influence to “improve” their jurisdiction's image, be it by removing outdated structures or skillfully landscaping its grounds as it sees fit. Of all the improvements around their part of Alumni Dr, the road itself is an aging (deteriorating) two lane facility for the most part and leads to what will be a “showcase” Commonwealth Stadium before next season.

When Commonwealth Stadium was planned in the early '70s, the University provided two access points on the southern boundary of its shrinking research farm. This road, connecting those two points, was labeled as “Farm Road D” and wound itself through the rolling fields. It looked to be a lot of pavement to only used for a few football games a year.

At this same time the City was wrestling with suburban traffic and looking to implement a long planned connector road between the Mt Tabor/Tates Creek Rd intersection and Rosemont Garden/Nicholasville Rd intersection. Envisioned in the 1930 Comprehensive Plan prior to any suburban development, to push through established neighborhoods as other communities were doing, Lexington found very stiff resistance.

Farm Road D provided a reasonable alternative in terms of traffic movement and allowed the contested connector road to be put to rest, except. Most of the non game day type traffic would be coming from the residents and taxpayers of the City, therefore the City should bear the cost of maintenance became the University's position. Therefore a memorandum of understanding (MoU) was hammered out and I believe is still in effect today.

Th MoU and the alignment of the roadway have impact on issues such as traffic control, snow removal, out of county emergency medical access and even the joint Arboretum venture which is so successful. What appears to not be covered is the now needed upgrade and landscaping of a primary approach to the SEC class (and pride of the Commonwealth) football stadium.

I realize that the Town-Gown discussions were primarily to bridge the gap from downtown to campus, but I hope that this is not too far afield to create a better image for our visitors and a point of pride for our residents. The impending shuttering of the existing senior citizens center will allow the final campus access point to be brought in line with the rest and reinforce the University's overall image.

What Is In A Name?

Lexington now has a new street. One that has been in the planning stages for many years and has been called many names over those years. This street is now named for a person that few have any knowledge of and few places where one can look for information about him. His name was nominated, vetted and voted upon by the public, in an online poll, and garnered over half the votes cast. Yet the Herald-Leader says that little is known about him and they had no part in finding any information on him prior to the vote. I find it interesting that so many citizens could have made such an informed decision without the local newspaper.

This is the same newspaper which describes the first segment of the road(Phase IV) as running from West Main St. to Versailles Rd. and labels the photos with the current terminus as the intersection with Maxwell. Actually W. High St. is the intersection and Maxwell intersects a little closer to town and W High St. changes to Versailles Rd on the other side of the bridge at Angliana Ave.

I have followed the local controversies of our governments street naming or address committee and the troubles of naming or renaming streets due to problems(or perceived problems) and the wish to honor an fallen public servant. Then there is the issue of letting the public vote on naming a new roadway segment where very few realize that a problem could arise from failure to do so. To fully explain all the implications of how addresses are determined and assigned would take far more space than a single blog post and few readers would be willing to wade(slog) through it, so I won't attempt to give it a shot. What I will do is tell what I know about how some streets got their names.

Lexington started out with some very simple street names and none of them were named after anybody or any event, just some simple names on a grid. There was Main St which ran parallel to the Town Branch Creek and a commons area on either side of the creek which included the site of the original blockhouse and fortifications. What were called "in lots" surrounded both Main and the commons and from there north were "out lots". The streets parallel to Main had the numerical designations of Second through Seventh St. except for a short section of road called Short St, how odd. The perpendicular streets began with the Cross Street, (or Main Cross Street on some maps) right by the blockhouse and on either side of that were Mill(on the east) and Spring(on the west). If you try real hard, I bet you can tell what was the distinctive feature of each. Beyond these were Upper and Lower Streets with Upper on the upstream(east) side and Lower on the downstream(west) side. The eastern end of the "in lots" had a cross street named Mulberry, which ran from Hill St across Main and north to the extent of the "out lots". Hill St took its name from the fact that it traversed the crest of the hill on the south side of the Town Branch. The last two streets on the original plat were Walnut and Back, with Back being the farthest from the blockhouse or commons area and thus out back of everything else. See, simple names

But streets don't stop at the edge of town, they become roads that lead to the outside world. Main St led northwest along the Town Branch toward the Kentucky River and points westward, or you could go south east, back toward the Cumberland Gap. Cross St went north toward the Ohio and the settlements that would sprout in that direction, but it also went south to James Harrod's station and fort. Mulberry led out toward Bryan's station and on up the long used indian trail to the Ohio River and a spot that became known as Limestone because of the quality of rock in the area. As Lexington grew and the wilderness became subdued, people began to develop dwelling places and farms on the "out lots" and they saw the roads bring folks and take folks away, but mostly they saw the roads bring commerce.

Cross St and Main, being the center of town activity, probably saw the most commercial traffic and the width of Cross was increased to handle it. Newcomers from "back east" felt that it needed a name befitting its size and it became Broadway. Anyone building a fine house found the need to obtain their foundation stones from Limestone, Ky. and Mulberry St. started to be called the Limestone Rd.. Limestone, Ky. became Maysville and the road was then called the Maysville Turnpike, but it was still officially Mulberry in town. It took until 1887 for the City Council to change the name to Limestone St. and that was finally shortened to Limestone.

Imagine, if you can, that most of the homes and related activities occurring within what we now call our downtown core, from High St to Short and Limestone to Broadway. This is the very area that we have redone the streetscape and pavilion. With the influx of new residents in the early 1800s, many of them lawyers come to settle the land survey and boundary disputes, new housing developments sprang up as the farmers moved farther out into the fertile fields and the “out lots” became the estates of the wealthy.

The passageways to reach these estates, mostly unpaved, sometimes took their names from those who lived along them or their destinations. The 14 “out lots” on the south side of Hill St. abutted the property of John Maxwell and, as the lots began to be sub-divided, the roadway took the name of Maxwell St. Initially running from approximately Merino St to just east of Mulberry(Limestone), the street was extended to Woodland in the early 1900s.

The religious needs of the community were satisfied with meeting houses until the various congregations could build proper houses of worship. Several of these were located on the closest group of out lots and just north of Short St and were connected by a new roadway running parallel to Short and bisecting the lots. That street is now named Church St

Mill St was extended north along the west side of out lots “F” and #6, ending at Third St and a corresponding street was cut from the east side of the same lots. This new street led directly to the public square on which was located the school house and later the county court house. Since the days that court was in session drew so many to town, there was usually much trading and selling in a public market and this new street took the name of Market St.

These are the early names as found on the maps up until 1835. The naming and the reasons for naming get more interesting after that.