East Market District (Louisville) - History and Architecture

History and Architecture

The area that is now NuLu was originally part of a 1,000-acre (4.0 km2) Royal land grant to Col. William Preston for his service during the French and Indian War. In 1827, the area was annexed by the city of Louisville under the name of "Uptown". Around 1832, Market Street's eastern terminus was occupied by the Woodland Gardens, a green oasis of amusement and entertainment in the growing city that became a favorite gathering spot with German immigrants. The gardens themselves gave way to the Bourbon Stockyards when it closed in 1880, which helped fuel early growth of meat purveyors, tanners and other industries associated with the livestock trade, including the establishment of five Market Houses that populated the street. Two of these could be found in today's East Market District: the Shelby Market, between Campbell and Shelby Streets, and the Preston Market between Preston and Floyd Streets. From the early 1960s until the early 2000s the East Market area was occupied by many of Louisville's homeless people and the Wayside Mission was a prominent feature. Eventually businesses in the area, headed by antiques dealer Joe Ley, pressured the city to crack down on homelessness and vagrancy. This paved the way for the gentrification of the area and early investors bought properties for renovation. The homeless were forced to move south of the area now concentrating on East Broadway.

Read more about this topic:  East Market District (Louisville)

Famous quotes containing the words history and/or architecture:

    To care for the quarrels of the past, to identify oneself passionately with a cause that became, politically speaking, a losing cause with the birth of the modern world, is to experience a kind of straining against reality, a rebellious nonconformity that, again, is rare in America, where children are instructed in the virtues of the system they live under, as though history had achieved a happy ending in American civics.
    Mary McCarthy (1912–1989)

    Art is a jealous mistress, and, if a man have a genius for painting, poetry, music, architecture or philosophy, he makes a bad husband and an ill provider.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)