Comments on: Louisville’s Potential As ‘Vice City’ http://brokensidewalk.com/2009/03/16/louisvilles-potential-as-vice-city/ Covering Louisville Neighborhoods Fri, 12 Mar 2010 19:14:10 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: Blog.WorldMaker.net http://brokensidewalk.com/2009/03/16/louisvilles-potential-as-vice-city/comment-page-1/#comment-4593 Blog.WorldMaker.net Tue, 17 Mar 2009 00:29:45 +0000 http://brokensidewalk.com/?p=3971#comment-4593 <strong>Louisville as a Classic City of Vice...</strong> On the heels of my own post referring to Derby, I was referred to an article at The Urbanophile about Louisville marketing itself as a Vice City (via Broken Sidewalk) and in commenting chanced upon this spirited ad for Louisville. I certainly think “J... Louisville as a Classic City of Vice…

On the heels of my own post referring to Derby, I was referred to an article at The Urbanophile about Louisville marketing itself as a Vice City (via Broken Sidewalk) and in commenting chanced upon this spirited ad for Louisville. I certainly think “J…

]]> By: Max Battcher http://brokensidewalk.com/2009/03/16/louisvilles-potential-as-vice-city/comment-page-1/#comment-4590 Max Battcher Tue, 17 Mar 2009 00:09:33 +0000 http://brokensidewalk.com/?p=3971#comment-4590 I've talked about this a lot, actually. We couch the debauchery of Derby in its own tradition. We relish the vices that we've centered into the Derby Festival, and we take what advantage we can from the rise in tourism for that month, and then once the last race is run on the first Saturday in May we sweep it all back under the couch and pretend we're an upstanding working class city with few vices and many conventions and sports and wonder sometimes why we have trouble attracting considerably more tourism bucks year-round. All the while lying to ourselves that alcohol distilling is not considered a "real" vice and that one of the world's biggest gambling events isn't "really" gambling because there are beautiful horses and closing in on nearly a century and a half of "respectable" tradition. I think there is probably benefit in seriously debating a good "Vice City" plan. Heck, even French Lick is back to following that plan... What if we refer to it as the "Gatsby City" plan or the "Fitzgerald Plan"? There is a certain mystique of the Louisville portrayed in "The Great Gatsby": sipping Mint Juleps in a sweltering Seelbach. The same Seelbach that was a haunt of Capone. Who loved the 5-star food at the Oakroom enough that management had an escape door installed... It's certainly easy to romanticise the Prohibition Era today, and its somewhat obvious that Louisville is a fascinating place under the warped glass of Prohibition romanticism. Louisville was certainly a base of operations for a number of bootleggers and was a crucial point in the Chicago-French Lick-Louisville vice triangle. From what I remember reading, gangsters would sell Louisville based bootlegged alcohol in Chicago and then launder the money through French Lick casinos and buy more under-the-counter liquor in Louisville... I think there are great possibilities there... If we care to explore them. Heh, a quick google search turned up this YouTube riff on the "Possibility City" commercials (that is in fact actually by the Community Branding Project! Awesome.): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzPLxq2VXzU I’ve talked about this a lot, actually. We couch the debauchery of Derby in its own tradition. We relish the vices that we’ve centered into the Derby Festival, and we take what advantage we can from the rise in tourism for that month, and then once the last race is run on the first Saturday in May we sweep it all back under the couch and pretend we’re an upstanding working class city with few vices and many conventions and sports and wonder sometimes why we have trouble attracting considerably more tourism bucks year-round. All the while lying to ourselves that alcohol distilling is not considered a “real” vice and that one of the world’s biggest gambling events isn’t “really” gambling because there are beautiful horses and closing in on nearly a century and a half of “respectable” tradition.

I think there is probably benefit in seriously debating a good “Vice City” plan. Heck, even French Lick is back to following that plan…

What if we refer to it as the “Gatsby City” plan or the “Fitzgerald Plan”? There is a certain mystique of the Louisville portrayed in “The Great Gatsby”: sipping Mint Juleps in a sweltering Seelbach. The same Seelbach that was a haunt of Capone. Who loved the 5-star food at the Oakroom enough that management had an escape door installed…

It’s certainly easy to romanticise the Prohibition Era today, and its somewhat obvious that Louisville is a fascinating place under the warped glass of Prohibition romanticism. Louisville was certainly a base of operations for a number of bootleggers and was a crucial point in the Chicago-French Lick-Louisville vice triangle. From what I remember reading, gangsters would sell Louisville based bootlegged alcohol in Chicago and then launder the money through French Lick casinos and buy more under-the-counter liquor in Louisville…

I think there are great possibilities there… If we care to explore them. Heh, a quick google search turned up this YouTube riff on the “Possibility City” commercials (that is in fact actually by the Community Branding Project! Awesome.):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzPLxq2VXzU

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