Category Archives: Uncategorized

Day 64-Hiding Springs

November 28, 2014 Marcel

I walked through the Cardinal Valley neighborhood today. This is a residential neighborhood with small, simple 1960’s era homes. Though simple, these houses look pretty well built, though not as universally well-maintained as, say the homes in Chevy Chase I passed by a few days ago.

Simple early 60's era houses in Cardinal Valley — Simple early 60’s era houses in Cardinal Valley

The houses I passed by were pretty similar, representing a narrow range of styles and sizes. There is an apartment complex at the front of this neighborhood. I also passed a school and two churches, located at the back of the neighborhood. It’s unusual to see churches located deep within neighborhoods; oddly enough, the other place I ran into this was on Day 31, not far from here. In that case, the church was a Spanish-language church, as these two were.

Near the churches is an inconspicuous entrance to a park which sports the historical marker shown above. I would think it would be neat to have something like this nearby, but every indication was that this park entrance was rarely used. In fairness, I didn’t venture into the park, which will feature more prominently in future walks, but this would be far from the first place that seemed to shy away from allowing water to be a focal point of open space. This green space blind spot may stem from the fact that little streams are everywhere in Lexington, which is a good thing. (By contrast, in other places, streams like this have generally been covered over in concrete, though more recently have been benefactors of “daylighting” projects.) The benefit, then, might be more awareness of the ecological benefits, less taking these spaces for granted; perhaps an incremental decrease in the amount of trash and other pollution that is winding up in streams.

Shopping carts are easy to clean up...all the other trash is a problem. — Shopping carts are easy to clean up…all the other trash is a problem.

How does this happen, within the confines of limited budgets? I think a little communication could go a long way, starting with improved signage. (How many parks have entrances similar to this one with nothing more than a “Park Closes at Dusk” sign?) I love the mystery here…after doing more research and looking at the satellite images of Preston’s Spring Park, I’m itching to get back to this area. But I’d like to see a little more direction, a simple trail with an online guided tour or at least something explaining why there isn’t a trail here.

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Day 63-Relatively Small Houses

November 26, 2014 Marcel

I spent some time today walking through the Hartland neighborhood. Sometimes I find it hard to tell where neighborhood divisions are from looking at the map and other times I get lucky. In this case, the area I passed through is distinct from its neighbors, who generally feature even larger lots and fancier houses–some of these are places you won’t believe. Houses here are on the large side, probably in the neighborhood of 3,000 feet on average, usually brick and in the contemporary vernacular. The neighborhood is well-kept, from the not-a-blade-of-grass-out-of-place school, with remarkably leaf-free lawns for the time of year. These houses are nice–lots of curb appeal. But residents really let the houses serve as their expression to the outside world. Landscaping was bland, the seasonal light displays tasteful.

Street signs in the Hartland neighborhood

The cars in this neighborhood stood out to me. The cars I saw were pretty consistently modest, with not as many newer cars and few luxury makes. And these could be cars driven by household help–handymen, maid services. But the observation seemed to hold even for cars that definitely belong to residents–cars pulling into or out of garages. (It’s amazing how many people are moving on weekday afternoons!) In some neighborhoods, I get the clear impression that people put a higher priority on their cars rather than there houses; this neighborhood seems to be filled with people making the opposite choice. And it seems to be working for them!

The best surprise of the day has to be the old oak tree standing in a yard on Hartland, pictured above. Preservation of old trees has been in the news here recently you might enjoy Tom Eblen’s October 2013 column on old tree preservation.

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Day 62-Walking Distance

November 25, 2014 Marcel

I returned to Chevy Chase this afternoon. This area is a mix of residential with a strong commercial district along this block of Romany and Duke, which includes a grocery store. My first visit to the neighborhood was on Day 33, though this portion of Chevy Chase reminded me a little more of the Southland Drive area from Day 46, with lots of Cape Cods and large front yards. I’m surprised by the number of multi-family homes here, especially in the form of four-unit apartment buildings. Most of the buildings here date from the 1950’s, though there were some apparently newer places (for example along Providence near Romany). Even including the apartment buildings, the housing stock here appears to be in good shape, and I saw indications of number of remodel projects of various scales today.

This area, with its mix of single family, multi family and commercial seems well-suited to walking, but walkability suffers from some really wide corner radii. This area (like many others) would benefit from some sidewalk bump-outs. Bump outs shorten the distance between curbs. This has two impacts. One is that it forces drivers to take turns more slowly (giving them more time to spot pedestrians and less lethality if they hit us). The other is that by shortening the amount of road to be crossed, bump-outs lessen the perception of the street at a barrier. In at least one place, a solid white line is painted with the intent of making the radius smaller, but lines like these seem to be seen as suggestions or outright ignored by drivers.

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Day 61-The more things change

November 20, 2014 Marcel

Naturally enough, as one gets closer to downtown and into older areas, uses become mixed. Day 61 brings me to the Aylesford area, near Woodland Park and past an eclectic mix of early 1900’s houses, houses converted to apartments, botique-y shops in older buildings, businesses in functional mid-century buildings. There is always a little bit of infill in neighborhoods this old, and it’s hard not to imagine what this area looked like 40 years ago or 70 years ago, especially when you come across street names like “Old Vine”.

Businesses along High street; note parking takes the place of sidewalk.

The amount of surface parking stands out. Since many of the businesses here are niche businesses, there certainly needs to be a way to get people here and cars are filling that need. Maybe what stands out is that, given the creative lean of the business mix, the parking is…inelegant, often carved out in front of businesses and creating a strip-mall feel when this could have been avoided.

I was a little disappointed with the lack of vitality, as well. There were bright spots, like the decorated cul-de-sac on Preston (highlighted by the cow skull scarecrow seen above). And maybe it’s unfair to judge the vitality of a commercial district based on a chilly November workday. But a lot of places, businesses, homes, felt like they were kind of phoning it in a little bit. And maybe this is part and parcel of being a car-reliant neighborhood that was not designed for cars; people are moving, but generally from a store or home to a car parked nearby. This means there is with no opportunity for window shopping as you might have along a pedestrian-oriented commercial district, a shopping mall or even a strip mall. The parking requirements displace public space and particularly sidewalks and actively discourage the types of behaviors I expected to see here. There is no reason to adorn houses or yards, either, and houses here feel more introverted than houses befitting typical suburban typologies.

Nonetheless, and even though this area isn’t a destination in the same sense as say, downtown, it still provides a lot to take in, hints of the timbre of the Lexington creative class as well as its history.

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Day 60-Tributaries of tributaries

November 17, 2014 Marcel

Day 60 took me to the Monticello neighborhood, just west of Shillito Park. This is similar in many ways to the areas I’ve visited the past few days, though this neighborhood is slightly older, with 70’s era “two-story” ranch houses dominating.

We saw our first significant snow fall in Lexington this morning, so I really wanted to capture the snow before it could melt off the trees. The snow certainly has an impact on viewing the neighborhood as well, though, serving as a modulating factor by muting the visual impact of lawns, gardens, roofs.

The Monticello neighborhood is well-connected to neighboring Shillito Park

A couple of things stood out to me here. The first is that the sidewalk along Monticello (at least on one side of the street) marches right into Shillito park. This is nice, perhaps a little unexpected as I’m used to seeing a sidewalk built by the last house on a block then end abruptly.

The second feature was the appearance of the South Elkhorn Creek, a tributary of the Kentucky River. The creek is shown above, passing between houses in the neighborhood. I’ve passed over dozens of little streams in my walking in Lexington and it was neat to finally be able to identify one as the headwaters of a creek large enough to have a named watershed. (The Apple Maps application actually labels another stream in this area as “South Elkhorn Tributary”, though I appreciate them being labeled at all!)