Day 126-Gravity

This route covers a portion of the Northside area, and much like the recent excursion through Gratz Park, there is plenty of history here and I’ll leave that for people who can speak to it more eloquently. It’s enough for me to feel the weight of hundreds of years, to sense the tremendous change these areas have witnessed.

Relative to that change, there were two amazing things to me. One is that I walked past houses, restaurants, schools, churches, cultural institutions. And this was, relatively speaking, a short walk. In many newer neighborhoods, I can take a longer walk and not pass anything but single-family houses. Some of this is certainly the impact of cars but certainly some of this is inevitable as a city grows. I sense that larger cities have more gravity, too. This seems to be in evidence somewhat as the activity level drops off noticeably between Short and Second street.

Day 125-Quiet Time

This route through the Skycrest neighborhood was my first in 40504 in some time. Since altering my focus to concentrate on areas inside New Circle, I’ve spent a lot of time walking through neighborhoods in 40502 and 40508 and these areas each have unique feel. 40504 does as well, and it was refreshing to come back to it after a long layoff. This route concentrated on three streets, Lynn, Della and Cheryl, right where they meet Harrodsburg. These are long streets, with modest Cape Cod style houses and plenty of mature trees. I was surprised by how quiet things were here given the proximity of Harrodsburg Road. There wasn’t much that was especially notable here, just a quiet neighborhood where people were starting to put up Christmas decorations.

Day 124-Back to the ‘burbs

This was an impromptu walk through a neighborhood close to home. I’ve walked through this area several times with my daughter; today she was home “sick” and it turned out to be a nice day for a walk, so I set off with the plan of picking a route based on how things went.

I’ve been intentionally biasing my route selection toward neighborhoods inside New Circle Road since I almost certainly won’t be able to finish all routes before we relocate to a new city, probably in the spring. So today’s was a rare recent trek through a relatively new neighborhood. I was pleasantly surprised that this area has some of the features that make older neighborhoods interesting to walk through but which new neighborhoods tend to lack–unique houses and unique landscaping. The first is funny–really the vast majority of houses here are very similar to one another. A two story ranch is repeated up and down these streets with minor variations. But there are occasional houses that are perhaps even more striking for breaking what is otherwise a fairly strict mold. The landscaping, again, was largely typical of suburban neighborhoods with expanses of grass interrupted only by driveways. But there was enough variation–a picket fence here, tall hedge there, to make a difference.

Day 123-Meadowthorpe

This walk took me to the Meadowthorpe neighborhood, the first planned neighborhood in Lexington. This area is historic and it appears well cared for even though homes in the area I walked through this time are modest. I feel that most 1950’s neighborhoods reflect the optimism of the period in which they were built, but it’s underneath a veneer of despair. This neighborhood is different. It still reflects that older 1950’s optimism, but it has retained or modified its optimism. It doesn’t feel dated, as its cohorts do, but instead feels as if it’s adapted its optimism to changing times.

Day 122-A winning formula?

This route took me to an area south of Lansdowne-Merrick park, around and along Tates Creek Road. In contrast to the area north of the park, homes here are multifamily, duplexes and condos. This area is also home to some businesses including the Lansdowne Shoppes. This seems like a good formula to me, similar to the Alexandria drive area. I need to remember to pass through here on a pleasant weekend day to see if it has a similar vibe.