Location

April 13, 2008

I landed in Louisville (pronounced by locals as “Loo-vul”) after a fairly uneventful flight from New York. I have been looking forward to this trip largely because I’d only been in Kentucky once before (at age 8 or so), and I had read that it’s a big city (16th largest in the nation) with a small-town feel. I wasn’t disappointed.

After catching the opening sessions of the conference, I attended the evening Mass at the Cathedral of the Assumption, the center of the Archdiocese of Louisville. Built in 1830 by German and Irish Catholic immigrants, the church’s faux-finished walls represent stone blocks. It is a bright, airy cathedral, which was renovated in 1988.

I was in a reflective mood partly because of the opening speaker at the conference just a bit earlier. John Cassis, former motivational speaker with the Chicago Bears, told the story of how some cultures in Southeast Asia battle the increasing monkey population – and his point was that you don’t accomplish all that you want to if you don’t let go of the past: In this village, the locals pour sugar and rice into a hollowed gourd and hang it from a tree. The monkey climbs onto the tree, reaches into the gourd to grab a handful of rice and sugar, and his hand gets stuck because he is making a fist. So the monkey begins to scream and jump around with his fist in the gourd. He’s trapped. But all he had to do was let go of the sugar and rice, and he would have been able to pull his hand out.

That’s just what we all should do, Cassis said: We hold onto things from the past, as if we don’t want to let them go, when we can easily escape if we just let go. Nice story. Resonated with me.

Mass was nice. I always like attending Mass in a different city. It is a strong bond among Catholics - that whenever I go, I can participate in a sacred ritual that is (usually) the same across borders and languages.

There’s very little barbecue on offer downtown, so I settled for baby back ribs at Red Star Tavern, located in a revitalized part of downtown known as Fourth Street Live!, which is very similar to the Fremont Street Experience in downtown Vegas: a gimmicky entertainment district populated by clubs, bars, trendy restaurants and a bizarre local take on art (what’s with the beams soaring overhead? why so much neon?). I don’t care for places like that mainly because they force culture where it might not want to be.

Anyway, the ribs were sufficient, and the beer (Bluegrass Brewing Co.’s Bourbon Barrel Stout) was an excellent, creamy brew with a hint of sweetness and a rich finish. I concluded the evening at the Old Seelbach Bar at the Seelbach Hotel. It’s a gorgeous, dark inviting place that has been named one of the best bars in the country. And no wonder: It’s been located on that site for a century and is haunted with all the colorful characters who have sipped a tipple at its massive mirrored bar.

Fitzgerald supposedly spent time there while writing “The Great Gatsby,” and – I recently learned – the Seelbach Cocktail was invented there. I had a few. They’re not bad: bourbon, Brut champagne, hefty dashes of both Angostura and Peychaud’s bitters and Cointreau (or triple sec if you’re gonna slum it). It’s light, bubbly and dry – a fine afternoon drink for both man and woman. So I spent the evening in the inviting bar, with jockey silks hanging overhead among the ceiling lights, its deep red-brown plastered walls dimly lit with sconces, its wainscoting and panels, deep green carpeting and mini lights on the tables. The center of the room is sunken about 18 inches and is rimmed with an intricate railing. The bar itself is stocked with 60 bourbons, and the drinks are made with care and knowledge of how to craft a true cocktail.

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Louisville, Kentucky
April 14, 2008

I snuck in breakfast at Proof on Main, named one of the nest new restaurants of 2006 by Esquire and one of America’s 50 most amazing wine experiences by Food & Wine Magazine. I had the Proof Benedict, made of Kentucky grit cake, country ham and fonduta – a filling meal in an elegant, quiet atmosphere with crisp, white table linens. The staff is relaxed but dedicated, confident. The location is amazing. It’s in one of the dozens of restored storefronts that line Main Street, which itself is clean and spacious with brick paver sidewalks.

In fact, it’s located in an area that has the second-largest collection of 19th-century cast-iron facades in the nation. Only New York’s SoHo district has more. Louisville’s 3-, 4-, and 5-storey buildings on West Main house upscale restaurants, museums and shops in a clean, relaxed main artery of downtown with occasional views of the Ohio River glimpsed through alleys and parks that line the riverfront.

That afternoon I visited the Louisville Slugger Museum. Although I retired as a third-rate tee-ball player in first grade, it doesn’t mean I don’t have fond memories of the Louisville Slugger I swung around the yard on Washtenaw as a boy.

There’s a ton of history in those bats: In 1842 Michael Hillerind brought his family from Germany to Louisville. His son, J. Frederick Hillerind, later established a woodworking shop in 1864 and made bed posts, wooden bowling balls and hand rails. Just 30 years later, the Slugger name was registered as a trademark, and the first Louisville Slugger was used by Pete Browning of the Louisville Eclipse team in the 1880s.

The tour itself, as short as it is, is worth the admission. We watched high-speed lathes turn a bat in just 30 seconds (it took more than 20 minutes in the old days). We walked past the machine that has been programmed to remember the precise specification of every major leaguer’s bat preference. We saw the lone, unmanned machine that burns the trademark and the employees (who work a regular work week, in spite of the thousands of bats they turn each year) dip the bats into one of just three approved lacquers.

The factory is rather small, just a few hundred feet from the beginning of the operations to the end, but that makes it all the more impressive. The museum’s fairly basic, but it has on offer some impressive memorabilia – such as one of only three Babe Ruth bats in existence, used in 1927, when he hit 60 home runs and batted .356 to lead the Yankees to a sweep of the 1927 World Series. Most notable are the 21 notches for his nearly one dozen home runs before the bat cracked. The museum is also home to bats used by Lou Gehrig, Ted Williams, Hank Aaron and Ty Cobb, arguably the best player in the history of the sport.

From there I walked along the riverfront to the Falls of the Ohio, where Lewis and Clark set out on their famed exploration of the Northwest Oct. 26, 1803. It’s also the spot where James Audobon used to sit and paint, inspired by the falls and the fauna. I couldn’t find either one. The falls must be out there somewhere, I thought, but I couldn’t find them on the river. The Ohio itself isn’t much of a scene – it’s muddy, wide, calm, unimpressive. It sort of just blends into Indiana’s rural southern flatlands with little fanfare of either the natural or man-made kind.

Still, the Belle of Louisville, a steamboat listed on the National Register, occupies roughly the same spot that its predecessors did more than a century ago when Louisville was a steamboat hub with half a dozen lines operating in the mid-1800s. The wharf has hosted a variety of notable personalities, including eight U.S. presidents, James Monroe and Andrew Jackson in June 1819, Washington Irving in September 1833, Abraham Lincoln in September 1841, Charles Dickens in April 1842, Ralph Waldo Emerson in June 1850 and Herman Melville in January 1858.

The city was founded in 1778 and named for King Louis XVI of France in appreciation of his assistance during the Revolutionary War. During the Civil War the city was a major operational base for the Union, and in the post-war period its merchants and manufacturers shaped Louisville’s economy. Seagram and Sons opened the world’s largest distillery in Louisville after Prohibition was repealed.

In the mid-1800s, the city experienced an influx of German and Irish immigrants, and their legacy remains. One of the most notable restaurants in the city is Cunningham’s. It’s not a fancy place, but it’s a tried-and-true favorite among locals. It’s on Fourth Street midway between the city’s two grand hotels – the Seelbach and the Brown. Cunningham’s is a simple place: basic booths and tables, black-and-white historical photos of the city’s past hang on every wall and among every booth. It’s a relaxed, casual atmosphere, a family restaurant that has been serving Louisville since 1810 and is known not for its burgers but for its fish sandwich: a thick, meaty, juicy helping of Icelandic cod breaded and served on wheat toast. It doesn’t even need tartar sauce and can stand on its own. I also ordered turtle soup and a Maker’s Mark Manhattan.

The spring weather finally got it right: Monday’s weather offered clear blue skies, a warm breeze and temperatures reaching the 60s. So I enjoyed a walk back to the Seelbach for another Manhattan before bed.

The city's prominent merchants once called The Fourth Avenue neighborhood their home, and following commercial development and recent revitalization efforts it has become the place for diners and theatergoers heading out to places such as the Louisville Palace, opened in 1928 and built on a lavish Spanish Baroque Revival style. Years of economic development and a series of loans have revitalized the area into a haven for relaxation, good food and shopping. The neighborhood still retains a bit of urban grit though as quiet, keep-to-themselves bums wander the area and a strip club called the Showbar with its gaudy neon sign advertises electric sex inside.

…“Beauty is an outward gift, which is seldom despised, except by those to whom it has been refused.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson…

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Louisville, Kentucky
April 15, 2008

I slipped out of the conference in time for lunch at the Brown Hotel, a grand brick building that, in 1923, was drawing more than 1,200 guests each evening for its dinner dance. In the wee hours of the morning the buzzed guests would grow tired of dancing and would retire to the restaurant to satisfy their late-night cravings. Bored with the traditional ham and eggs, Chef Fred Schmidt surprised his guests by creating the Hot Brown, an open-face turkey sandwich with bacon, pimentos and a delicate Mornay sauce. It lives up to its reputation. Cheesy and meaty, it’s the perfect meal after a few drinks – or for a hefty lunch. I also tried a mint julep. Nice afternoon drink, but to locals it’s a sorry saccharine substitute for a reputable tipple.

The highlight of the afternoon – and possible the entire trip – was my visit to Churchill Downs and the Kentucky Derby Museum. White and cream bricks and columns make for a grand entrance to the site of America’s most historic and storied thoroughbred racetracks and the oldest continuously operated racetrack in the country, having been established in 1874 with the first race a year later.

It’s a sprawling campus that rises from the bluegrass below. The names of the winners are painted on the upper façade just inside the main gate. The paddock – for all the weight its legend carries – is surprisingly compact. Intensely manicured, it pops with pinks and peaches and reds in the early spring when the tulips are in bloom. Its stables are quiet but majestic on this day. After all, they have housed so many legends throughout the years.

The original building dates to 1895 with its signature spires towering over the mile-long oval track and the 166-acre facility. The track itself is a moist, rich light brown sand that clumps when scooped by the bare hand. It stretches past the bleachers and the winner’s circle and the rest of the stands in a grand, sweeping arc. The seats, all 50,000, are empty on this day. They wait silently for Derby Day, a 134-year-old tradition in which just about any three-year-old thoroughbred could be the next champion.

I attended the banquet, which was held in the Millionaire’s Club overlooking the track, but I spent most of my time standing just outside on the tiered balcony as the track quietly went to sleep under a cloudless sky and a warm setting sun. Back inside, I sipped on another mint julep with a host of pudgy, bearded blue-collar managers (all of whom agreed that it was probably their last time consuming it; I couldn’t agree more). We listened to bugler Steve Buttleman play “My Old Kentucky Home.” We played mock racing on the more than 100 screens in the club, a sprawling, bright banquet hall. We heard stories about a $16 million bidding war between a sheikh and an Irishman and about a group of New York college buddies who won the Derby after an initial outlay of just $30,000. It’s an amazing, memorable place. I need to bet the horses more. The sport of kings is one of elegance, class and steeped in history.

…“The one great principle of English law is to make business for itself.” – Dickens …

Being in bourbon country, and being a brown-liquor drinker, I had to spend my last evening in town touring some of the city’s notable bourbon bars. The 12-year Elijah Craig at Park Place on Main was woody, smooth with hints of cherry and a clean finish. The restaurant is fairly new, like many in the renovated downtown, a place where reinvention and new interpretations of the city’s heritage are the trend. It’s a funky, modern, sometimes-upscale area, which doesn’t do the city’s real heritage any good, but it seems to offer a pretty decent quality of life for residents (and visitors such as myself). Park Place is adjacent to Louisville Slugger Park, where the local minor league team plays, so it’s not the most comfortable fit for an upscale restaurant, but the bar is on the “Urban Bourbon Trail,” so that’s worth something.

My next stop was Maker’s Mark Bourbon House and Lounge. I should’ve known what to expect with that addendum to the name. The joint tries way too hard to fit into the urban renaissance theme. Downtempo music plays softly in the background as loungers sink into the high-backed leather booths or peruse the extensive bourbon list (a perk, I admit). And the bartender – at least this particular evening – was a pretentious egghead. And it took him 20 minutes just to serve me … and all I ordered was a glass of 13-year, 90-proof Old Charter Proprietor’s Reserve (too spicy for my taste anyway…too much of a bite, regardless of its 90-proof status).

The night ended with a glass of seven-year, 126-proof Booker’s, recommended by the bartender at – where else? – the Old Seelbach Bar back at my hotel. Although I was slurring and glassy-eyed by the last few sips, I did enjoy it. There’s something sublime about sipping a glass of whiskey in a dark, old, classic bar, something that – at that very moment – connects me to all the pipe-smoking, well-mannered philosopher-drunks who have come before me. There’s something truly civilized about it, evolved, a social engagement independent of anything else going on in the world, a brief break from politics, work – even home life – for a respite with the millennial fraternity of drinkers. The Old Seelbach Bar encourages that. It must be one of the best bars in America.

…“They talk of the dignity of work. The dignity is in leisure.” – Herman Melville…

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Louisville, Kentucky
April 16, 2008

I toured the Louisville Underground Wednesday morning. It’s a privately owned labyrinth of man-made caves in a former limestone mine that operated from 1930 to 1972. With 17 miles of roads winding through just a fraction of the four million square feet of space, it’s easy to get lost. But the owner led us through and past just a few of the occupants who lease space – the Department of the Treasury (working on a secret Internet security project) and Underground Vaults Co., which secures and stores millions of private documents. A major Hollywood studio is leasing space to house its collection. There’s even boat and auto storage, in which Rolls Royces and Lamborghinis are just a few minutes away from the state’s and city’s salt storage (6,000 truck loads).

The afternoon went by slowly, which allowed me to visit the Thomas Edison House, a four-room brick, single-storey house where he lived briefly as a teenager while working as a telegrapher in the city. He lived in the 1850s shotgun duplex in the National Historic District of Butchertown while working with Western Union just after the Civil War in 1866-67. Loaded with his inventions, the house is a quiet, tiny tribute to the man who invented the phonograph and the working incandescent light bulb.

…“If there is one evil in the world today for which there is no excuse, it is the evil of stupidity.” – Thomas A. Edison …

The house was located in a blue-collar neighborhood where a German family rented to Edison, the long-haired, gap-toothed hippie guide told me. He was a skinny guy (a Libertarian, likely) who obviously is passionate about Edison’s inventions – and about knowledge in general.

I stood in the middle of the room Edison rented and looked out the front window, imagining what he might have looked upon as a young man of 19, when he would fiddle with his inventions late into the night. It’s a well-lit, 15-by-15-foot room with a high ceiling and a fireplace. I tried to soak up the atmosphere, hoping to glean some inspiration from the same place where Edison spent time. But nothing.

Choosing to skip the Muhammad Ali Museum, I had lunch at Bearno’s Pizza, a popular place among locals, where I had a delicious, deep Mama Bearno’s personal pizza, a mighty hearty Bourbon Barrel Stout and a pretty decent Derby pie (I had to do it, although it would have probably tasted better on Derby Day).