LexRides

alex

I am guest blogger today over at my friend Therese's blog ampersand seven

she posts a picture of a building's street number, corresponding with the day of the year (jan 1 = 1, jan 2 = 2 etc.) Today's number is 156, which happened to be the dame's street number, and when Therese came through with her band (they played second to last night at the dame) she took a picture of the number. She asked me to write a little eulogy/homage. check it out
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How about, "Can you NOT rip a giant hole in our downtown and erect a big goddamn penis full of crappy chain businesses?"
-F.L.

brokebike · cutter Joined: 21 Oct 2007 Posts: 2434 Location: local

Nice story, Alex. Thanks for sharing.
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elzie5000 · cutter Joined: 25 Oct 2007 Posts: 1177

Nice piece Alex.

Related story: http://www.kentucky.com/181/story/820288.html

jkizzle · cutter Joined: 29 Oct 2007 Posts: 519 Location: I.L.L.

Say there is a better mayor and council in the future...

At what point can the pit be condemned as blight and purchased by the city to be developed by someone who actually has a clue and a conscience, or create public green space?

I'm familiar with the process for buildings, but not mud pits. Anybody have any ideas?

taylor · Posted: Sun Jun 07, 2009 6:06 pm Post subject: who loves imminent domain?

I don't know much about the actual process, but I would bank on imminent domain being pretty unpalatable in Lexington, considering the rhetoric of gov't stealing private property was how the water company referendum got voted down in 2006 (correct me if I'm wrong - I wasn't a Lexington voter at the time, just an interested observer).

Rob Morris from Lowell's on Mechanic Street has an interesting blog post about taxing blight as a way of getting rid of CP, Lexington Mall and the multitude of shitty houses that absentee landlords let get run down: http://lowells.typepad.com/lowells/2009/05/a-modest-proposal-to-end-blight.html - not entirely sure it would be palatable, either, but it's an interesting alternative.

elzie5000 · cutter Joined: 25 Oct 2007 Posts: 1177

Lack of codes enforcement was what let Rosenberg neglect the buildings on the Dame block until they were damaged enough to almost kinda support the argument that they were beyond saving, if that tells you anything about how that sort of thing works here.

Someone with a better knowledge of history might know what the process was with Phoenix park, which was pretty much exactly the same deal as is going on now. The Webbs wanted to build the 'world coal center', so they purchased and demolished the neglected but historic Phoenix hotel, financing fell through, it sat as a mud pit for over a year, then there was a big sports event coming up (NCAA tournament?), so they filled it in and made a park. I'm unclear on how the ownership of the land ended up reverting to the state.

taylor · Posted: Sun Jun 07, 2009 9:38 pm Post subject:

if I'm not mistaken, the Webb Brothers (surprisingly) had nothing to do with the World Coal Center tower. The plan was Wallace Wilkinson's, who became governor of KY a few years afterwards (please, please, please do not let Dudley Webb become governor!). everything else is right though. The timing is just off enough that Wilkinson wouldn't have been governor already to cede his own land to the city/state, so I'm not sure. who has good historic research skills?

straight from Wikipedia, yo: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Coal_Center

elzie5000 · cutter Joined: 25 Oct 2007 Posts: 1177

I'd always heard the Webbs were involved in it somehow, but yeah, it was mostly Wilkinson's project. The scumbag.

alex · Posted: Sun Jun 07, 2009 10:29 pm Post subject:

yes but Wilkinson + Webb = Ky Enron