3/1/2013
By Rose Lucas
As I think back over the neighborhood I have known for seven decades, I remember some of
the landmarks we no longer have. Walking along North Broadway or North Limestone, as I did
for most of my years of school at St. Catherine Academy and Lexington Catholic High School
(located where the Sayre Upper School is today) and my years of college at Transylvania, every
day I enjoyed neighbors and neighborhood buildings. Transylvania’s campus faced North
Broadway and had an entrance arch that led to the College of the Bible Building (razed in 1959/
60 and replaced by Haupt Humanities Building). McAlister Auditorium was the college gym on
the corner of Fourth and Broadway and included classrooms that were built in a wrap around for
the old gym that dated when my mother was a student in the 1920s. One of my earlier posts
bemoaned the loss of the corner groceries – and the Transy Den, on the northeast corner of
Fourth and Broadway, was an institution for many years for both Transy students and
neighbors. The Colonial Inn, a fantastic southern restaurant, was housed in an historic home on
the southwest corner of Fourth and Broadway and was replaced, along with another home used
as both a private home and housing for Transy students when my mother was in school, by the
Young Center. Further out Broadway, several homes were razed to make room for apartment
buildings. The stone “castle” at the southeast corner of Sixth and Broadway was a particularly
significant loss; as was the lovely apartment building at the northeast corner of Elsmere Park
and North Broadway that was torn down to build a professional office building. I sit at my
keyboard on the other corner of Elsmere Park and North Broadway in an office building which
replaced a beautiful home with round brick columns similar to the ones found on a house on the
east side of the 500 block of Broadway. Kudos to early efforts on the part of NNA to stop the
wholesale demolition of homes to make room for apartment buildings and office buildings.
Limestone has missing parts, too. Across from St. Catherine Academy was a row of furniture
stores; across from Sayre School the retail buildings still stand and are in use, but I expressly
remember the Buchignani grocery store in that block that had one of the first frozen food cases
in Lexington. Doodles was a neighborhood service station, then later the liquor store; there was
also a service station at the southeast corner of Fifth and Lime – now a grassy area
complementing the Brand House at Rose Hill. The old Johnson School was a magnificent
structure on the northwest corner of Fourth and Lime, replaced by the Johnson School
Townhomes. Yet, nothing will replace the thrill of hearing Dunbar High School’s band practicing
on the campus. My first year as a teacher found me at the old Lexington Junior High School,
and I miss the historic original structure and the home just south that was lost in the expansion
of the school. I am sure others can come up with more “missing” elements of our neighborhood,
but I have had this subject on my mind for a while and wanted to share some of the highlights in
my memories
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