NuRu in Hot Water
Despite your tongue-and-cheek article in the Fake Issue (March 27) about Rubbertown being the new NuLu (“NuRu”), this town has a history of doing just what the article implied — moving into an area and then complaining about what has gone on there for 100 years. Don’t move to Butchertown if you don’t like the smell of a rendering plant. Don’t live next to a barrelhouse if you don’t want white fungus growing on your carport. I’m all about revitalization, but don’t get in the pot and then complain about the hot water.
Darrell Wittenauer, Hikes Point
Eat More Conservatives
I try to pick up a LEO to see the restaurant reviews and to read News of the Weird. Usually we wrap fish or start fires with the rest, but recently I happened to read Jim Welp’s column titled “My night to cook,” thinking, just once, something in your rag would be entertaining without being tainted with your closed-minded, liberal leanings.
I was wrong. In an attempt to be funny, Welp slammed a wonderful institution that loves and welcomes everyone, namely Chick-fil-A. His sour-grape attitude toward what the majority of Americans believe (i.e.: God’s word) was not the reason the article wasn’t entertaining (it just wasn’t funny), but it certainly didn’t help.
No wonder you have to give this thing away!
Shawn D. Sumner, Jeffersonville
Monolith Moving to THE Highlands
I am a lifelong Louisvillian, born and raised in the Highlands. I take pride in my city and my neighborhood. I love our park system and use it for recreation on a weekly basis. I, however, am NOT enamored by the plan to build an enormous apartment complex around the corner from my home.
The proposed Willow Grande monstrosity will be out of keeping with our Historic Neighborhood status, and it certainly will not fit the Historic District aesthetic. In fact, it will require not only up-zoning but also seven waivers AND six additional variances from the existing code. If you allow this to go through, it will set a precedent that any other developer will in the future be able to point to as validation of their schemes.
It will also be an eyesore throughout the entire construction process. Not to mention the noise pollution!
1400 Willow already blocks the remaining view (not already blocked by the two-story apartment building I live next to) from the park-facing side of my home, and during the summer, I have the treat of being serenaded by the industrial sounds of their enormous air conditioning units, which, believe it or not, I can hear from half a block away.
Not only will it be awful during construction, but afterward, it will be a megalith looming over our beautiful park! The last such building to go up was the condominiums built on Cherokee Road; though only five stories tall (not the 17 of the proposed Willow Grande), it is CLEARLY VISIBLE from within the park. At less than a third the height of the proposed Willow Grande, it intrudes on the skyline within the park. If you allow such things to continue being built, it will not be long before Cherokee Park is hemmed in like Central Park.
Putting aside all of my well-founded concerns, I would also like to point out the idiotic pretension of the name Willow GRANDE. The Highlands was one of the first neighborhoods to support the Keep Louisville Weird campaign, and you expect us to accept something that belongs downtown (where all tall buildings belong) and you want to name it after a drink at Starbucks?! It isn’t a benign cup of coffee. It is a giant building that doesn’t belong in our neighborhood. Please do not condescend to us in this manner.
M. Adams, Highlands
