User:W.marsh/Streets of Louisville
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This is a work-in-progress about streets of Louisville. Cruft in the extreme? Maybe, but I assure you this stuff is all from published sources, and I deem it to be interesting (academically and on other levels) to at least some people, even if that's admittedly a small ammount of people.
[edit] Streets of Louisville
Stuff about the grid, spokes, and so on.
[edit] Downtown East/West Streets
Louisville's Downtown is largely a grid, and the major east/west streets are quite old and have a good deal of history.
[edit] Main Street
Main Street runs from Beargrass Creek (where it becomes Mellwood Avenue) in the east to 46th Street in the west, although there are several breaks further west, starting at 30th Street where there is a rail yard. The gates of the important early settlement, Fort Nelson, opened at today's 7th and Main. As Louisville was based on river trade early on, the first buildings built along Main Street were warehouses and hotels, such as the first Galt House. Starting in the 1850s, many taller buildings, primarilly warehouses. Main Street is said to have the second-highest concentration of cast iron buildings in the world, after SoHo in Manhattan.
As railroads became more important for transporation than the river, commerce shifted to center around Fourth and Broadway, and Main Street fell into a long decline, even before people and businesses began leaving Downtown for the suburbs after World War Two.
This trend changed in the 1970s, sparked by the construction of the new Galt House, new buildings were built along Main Street, and old ones were creatively renovated, such as a dry goods warehouse being turned into what is now the Louisville Science Center. In the 1982, the Humana Building was built on Main Street, starting a long trend of new developments, such as the Kentucky Center, the Louisville Slugger Museum and Louisville Slugger Field.
West of Downtown, past Ninth Street, many buildings are still abandoned and there is a strong feel of urban blight. Main Street carries US 60 from it's start at Mellwood to 13th Street and US 31 to Baxter Avenue to 22nd Street. US 31 actually splits into an East and West branch at Second and Main, they remain divided until rejoining in Nashville, Tennessee.
Main Street is one-way westbound to 22nd Street, where it becomes 2-way.
[edit] Market Street
[edit] Jefferson Street
[edit] Liberty Street
[edit] Muhammad Ali Boulevard
[edit] Chestnut Street
[edit] Broadway
[edit] Ordinal Streets
Section on all the ordinal streets. Probably a sub-section for 4th street, by far the most notable.
[edit] Fourth Street
[edit] Spoke roads
Mostly former turnpikes and stage coach roads, now core arteries of the city. East-to-west.
[edit] River Road
[edit] Brownsboro Road
[edit] Frankfort Avenue/Shelbyville Road
[edit] Lexington Road/Westport Road
[edit] Bardstown Road
[edit] Taylorsville Road
[edit] Newburg Road
[edit] Poplar Level Road
[edit] Preston Street/Highway
[edit] Taylor Boulevard/New Cut Road
[edit] 7th Street Road/Manslick Road
[edit] Dixie Highway
[edit] Cane Run Road
[edit] Parkways
Important parts of the Olmstead Plan for Louisville.
[edit] Eastern Parkway
[edit] Northwestern Parkway
[edit] Southwestern Parkway
[edit] Algonquin Parkway
[edit] Southern Parkway
[edit] Renamed Streets
A list of streets that have had alternate names at various points, did you know Broadway was originally "Dunkirk Road" or that 43rd street was "Falls City Avenue" at some point?
