The Courier-Journal from Louisville, Kentucky • Page 46

I NEIGHBORHOODSSouth End, OCTOBER 25, 1989 PAGE 3 ylvania Embattled from tfie start, community has fashioned its character as one of resilience By LINDA LYLYSpecial Writer A PLACE IN TIME Ipg'fJf' 1 tJ tf, if i L-f against the label "poverty-stricken." Although residents say they aren't sure how Sylvania came by its name, several noted that it has long been known for its heavily wooded areas, and "sylvan" means "a place of FILE PHOTO Concerns about conditions in Sylvania were an issue in the mid-1950s. The house above was on Sylvania Road in 1953. Sylvania PaK Sylvania Community JL sSsrtSiisSaSii Kf I sSfSr 'XaL L. YLVANIA residents can take a walk down Memory Lane. Literally.

It's right there off Ter ry Road, an actual street in their southwestern Jefferson County neighborhood. Although some neighborhood memories are less than pleasant, residents of the small community of some 200 homes bounded by Greenwood, Millcreek and Sylvania roads and Terry Lane speak proudly about its humble beginnings and hopefully about its future. Longtime STAFF resident Carolyn Mims said the neighborhood was established in 1925, shortly after developers decided that the land sat too low for a planned river resort. The area was then subdivided for low-cost housing, setting up a lifetime battle SI Louisville Jefferson County Riverport Authority ULj I vey of 214 homes by the Louisville-Jefferson County Health Department found 99 unprotected wells and 46 homes with no water supply. The study also found 129 open-pit or surface privies and 179 instances of rat harborage.

Residents say that unsanitary conditions are in the past and that they now have indoor plumbing and improved roads. Even during the early days, residents maintained that they were not poverty-stricken. In the late 1960s, they protested being designated as such by the Louisville-Jefferson County Community Action Commission, now the Community Action Agency. In May 1966, the commission reported that, based on the 1960 census, 90 percent of Sylvania's residents had incomes below the poverty level of $3,000 a year for a family of four. In April 1968, that figure dropped to 73 percent, but Mims said she looked at the community's application to the poverty program and pointed out that the boundaries were drawn incorrectly.

By August of that year, the commission had redefined Sylvania to include a much larger area, covering everything west of Dixie Highway to the Ohio River, with Lower River and Cane Run roads as the northern boundary and Ashby Lane as the southern boundary. The poverty level then was reported to be 5.1 percent. Most recently, the neighborhood found itself in the headlines when gasoline-soaked rags were thrown into the home of a black family moving into the predominantly white neighborhood. Two Sylvania men were convicted, and a 16-year-old juvenile was also charged. The family moved out.

Residents dismiss the episode as a solitary occurrence. the late 1950s and early 1960s, a neighborhood boy with a lisp mispronounced the name, thus giving birth to a neighborhood slogan, "I'm a Banian and proud of it." Virgie Yates, a 74-year-old resident who came to Sylvania in 1945 with a family of six and had seven more children while living there, said the neighborhood has "come a long way" over the years. Today, the neighborhood seems a mix of its past and its goals for the future. Tiny, well-kept brick and frame homes sit next to average-sized dwellings and an occasional tar-paper shack. Some lawns are cluttered with toys and gardening equipment.

Others are carefully landscaped and surrounded by fences. Signs along several streets warn, "No Dumping." Dumping was one of several problems the neighborhood faced in the early 1950s. In 1952, a sur Old oiusvi Southern Exposition brought wealth of growth; homes show rich mix of stylish differences By JOHN C. PILLOWStaff Writer ueT vmmtjt' woods and trees." Since its start, the neighborhood has battled problems with unsanitary conditions, poverty and more recently, its reputation. A 1963 Courier-Journal article about the area quotes one resident complaining about lack of services from Jefferson MAP BY STEVE DURBIN County.

"We are a forgotten community," he said. Even so, longtime residents many of whom call themselves "Banians" speak proudly of their home. In the midst of a battle over Sylvania's economic status in had a higher unemployment rate than the rest of the city. Most of Old Louisville's 12,000 residents are white, but a quarter are black. In short, Old Louisville can best be described as "neither," according to Edward Hart, 46, who has lived in a Second Street apartment for 10 years.

"It is neither white nor black, neither rich nor poor. It is just Old Louisville. That's what I like about it. It is sort of like the real world; you can't put a label on it," Hart said. But at its start, Old Louisville was easily labeled.

Sitting just south of the central business district, it was the city's first suburb. In 1817, brothers Cuthbert and Thomas Bullitt purchased a tract that overlapped the Campbell and Bowyer claims. They bought the land, known as Bullitt's Addition, from the heirs of the recipients. In 1825, shortly after the death of the Bullitts, several of Louisville's leading citizens began to purchase and subdivide the land. Between 1830 and 1860, large tracts between Broadway and Magnolia Avenue were platted by men like foundryman Benjamin Caw-thorn, railroad promoter Woodford Dulaney, attorney George Weis-singer and merchants John Jacob, FILE PHOTO lie At the heart of Sylvania is a community center built by the Metropolitan Park and Recreation Department about 20 years ago.

It has been used for company picnics and club meetings, as well as arts and crafts classes for children. "We're equipped to do anything," recreation supervisor Joe Thomas said. After working at the center for two years, Thomas moved to Sylvania 10 years ago. "It's a nice place," he said, "not like the reputation it's had for several years." Those who have lived there longer agree. Mims said people often note that her family is not poor and ask why she doesn't move away.

But she came to the community as a child, raised her family there, and now one of her children is living in the community, so she tells any skeptics she may encounter: "I prefer to live here. It's home." life. The St. James Court resident said she is proud of the neighborhood's history and its recent success. "Now if you need something done," she said, "there is always somebody willing to do it." Francisco, who went to the Wilder Park Festival in 1986 to talk to residents about the area's history, said the people were open and friendly.

"They talked my head off," Francisco said. "They're hardworking, honest, church-going, friendly people." And if many of the old-timers are gone, similar-spirited newcomers are taking their places such as Mike Jupin, director of South Louisville Community Ministries, who moved to Wilder Park 12 years ago. "It's still hard-working, blue-collar people," Jupin said. "This neighborhood is holding its own and maybe getting stronger. When I bought my house, I was the youngest person on the block.

Now about half the block is people in their 20s or 30s." 1 i I OAK STREET fc I I I Alfred 1 'f DuPont fc ormsby house MA6N01IA VVV OivTsTheophilus e7 KVsMo I Conrad VCy'SV'' Hilt house Court INcAN I SOUTHER NtV EXPOSITION NX 8 SITE KV 1 I University of Louisville FILE PHOTO, ABOVE, AND STAFF MAP BY STEVE DURBIN The Alfred duPont mansion, above, was on land now used as Central Park. The property was sold to Louisville for the park and the house was later demolished. The Southern Exposition was held on 45 acres of duPont land just south of Central Park from 1883 to 1887. AN ATTEMPT to win friends and influence people in 1772, Lord Dunmore, the royal governor of Virginia, awarded more than 30 land grants in the vicinity of the Falls of the Ohio. The recipients were prominent Virginians whose favor Dunmore needed to further his own ambitions.

Among them were Arthur Campbell, Thomas Bowyer and Henry Harrison, who received approximately 1,000 acres each. Their claims included most of an area now known as Old Louisville, bounded by Broadway, Eastern Parkway, Interstate 65 and Ninth Street. As the name indicates, the neighborhood's origins coincide with those of Louisville itself. However, in recent decades it has taken on a distinctive personality and an almost paradoxical identity within itself. Some Old Louisville residents are wealthy, others barely make ends meet Jefferson County Judge-Executive Harvey Sloane lives on South Fourth Street, only a few blocks away from a Salvation Army shelter for homeless people on South Brook Street.

St James Court remains one of the city's most prestigious addresses, but census data shows the Old Louisville area has consistently Collis Ormsby, Robert Ormsby and Henry Dumesnil. In 1836, Louisville annexed lands south of its limits, taking in the area between Broadway and Kentucky Street. Most of Old Louisville remained rural, however, consisting of country estates, slave and free-black tenements, a rope factory and slaughterhouses. A major change came in 1882, when, primarily due to the urging of Henry Watterson, editor of The Courier-Journal, the city decided to put together a regional industrial and mercantile show. The Southern Exposition covered 45 acres south of where Central Park now exists, on land owned by the duPont family.

The exposition ended in 1887 and served as a catalyst for new construction in the area. Development was concentrated in the area between Ormsby Avenue and the current University of Louisville Belknap campus. In 1890, William Slaughter led with such places as Washington, D.C's Georgetown and Boston's Beacon Hill, thriving areas also populated by old mansions and located near universities. In 1961, Nunn obtained a leave of absence from the newspaper and joined with attorney Eli Brown in forming Restoration which purchased and renovated 11 homes on Belgravia Court. But the real impetus for change was the Neighborhood Development formed in 1968 by five area churches.

In the early 1980s, NDC led the charge to push for an areawide re-zoning to allow only residences in Old Louisville. It was approved by the Board of Aldermen in 1983. The area is well-known now for hosting the St. James Court Art Show. Growing steadily since 1957, it now features nearly 500 exhibitors and has more than 100,000 visitors.

Gussie Smith, 81, has lived in Old Louisville most of her adult at First Street and Fairmont Avenue, which was named for a Louisville mayor during the '20s. "My little boys one's 50 now, and one's 40 used to put up tents in Huston Quin and camp out down there all night" Simmons said. "There's no telling what would happen if boys tried that now, even in a quiet neighborhood like this." Dad's Sandwich Shop, which was at 3801 Southern Parkway until it closed during the '50s, was a popular spot to eat "They used to roast chicken over an open fire on spits. It smelled so good," Dorsett said. Simmons worked at the restaurant during the late '40s and early '50s.

"When the Iroquois Amphitheater was booming, that's when I worked there," she said. "I made 75 cents an hour, including tips." the development of St. James Court on the recently cleared site of the Exposition. One of its more notable structures is the Theophi-lus Conrad house, at 1402 St. James Court.

Completed in 1895, it features carved gargoyles and massive arches. After World War II, suburbia became a national rage, and people began abandoning the inner city. And in the late 1960s and early '70s, by some accounts, Urban Renewal, which was designed to help the inner-city, actually added to the deterioration of Old Louisville. Tenements were razed in areas west and east of downtown, displacing numerous poor residents many of whom moved into small apartments in Old Louisville. As the crime rate increased, so did deterioration of some blocks.

Part of the area began to make a comeback when J. Douglas Nunn, a Courier-Journal urban affairs reporter, wrote numerous articles comparing the neighborhood other lifelong Wilder Park resident. "An usher would come up and run us out." The soda fountain at Demling's Pharmacy, which was at 3781 Southern Parkway until it closed during the '60s, was another spot for gathering. "Cherry cokes at the fountain I remember them," Nachand said. "Nowadays they come in cans and they aren't the same." "My boys used to go down there to Demling's and get things you can't get now shakes and things at the fountain," Pauline Simmons said.

Simmons' sons also entertained themselves in Huston Quin Park, Wilder Park i 3 'lis1 i I iFf If Continued from Page One for teen-agers was the old Cozy Theater, which was on Third Street near Central Avenue until it closed in 1965. "The Cozy! Now that was the Saturday-afternoon thing to. do," Dorsett said. "I saw movies with Tom Mix and Hoot Gibson and people like that. You got in for a nickel in the late Os." Thirty years later, Marjorie Na-chand watched Audrey Hepburn on the big screen.

Well, sometimes she watched. "We used to sneak up in the balcony with our little boyfriends and hug and kiss," said Nachand, an The Railroad YMCA, built in 1912 at Third Street and Central Avenue, offered about 70 beds, bowling, and billiards..