Curious Louisville

Unless you’ve traveled through the area, you might not know there’s something very special about Springdale Road in northeast Louisville: over a hundred brightly-colored, signs with romantic messages. They range from homemade from scraps of wood to professionally printed on metal. Locals call it “Lovers Lane.” Dance instructor Lori Ruttan drives down Springdale all the time, wondering how this tradition started and what love stories might be behind the signs. On this episode of Curious Louisville, we go all the way back to the beginning.

Did you know that one team from the University of Louisville has been part of every NCAA men’s basketball Final Four since 1969? You won’t see them on the court, but look on the sidelines and you’ll spot a team of hardworking statisticians who learned from the best. David Isaacs was part of that team in ‘69. His son, Jesse Isaacs, knew he “had something to do with” basketball stats and the creation of a rulebook. He asked Curious Louisville to find out more about this little gem of Louisville history, and LPM’s Justin Hicks has the story.

The city of Louisville has a fleet of around 50 salt trucks, and when it snows, each can carry 10 tons of snow at a time to scatter on our roads and expressways. When the snow melts, most of us never have to think about that salt again. But Annie McCanless, a retired social studies teacher in the Crescent Hill neighborhood wondered, "Does the salt put on the street to melt the snow end up in the Ohio River? How does it affect the fish and water fowl?" On this episode of Curious Louisville, we find out.

Have you ever used the "places" feature in the Wikipedia app? It shows you interesting sites near your location. Michelle Kadikian, who lives in Old Louisville, used that feature while at home, and found fragments of information about a Civil War encampment called Taylor Barracks. There's not a lot of information about these buildings in the history books, but reaching them was a matter of life or death for thousands of formerly enslaved men. On this episode, we'll find out why.

When Sarah and Lowe Sutherland bought their house back in 2007, a friend of a friend told her a titillating story: "I was a paper boy on your street back in that during the war, and when I was delivering the papers, I saw that they arrested a German spy in the house that you just bought." The Sutherlands have wondered since then, is it true? LPM's Joe Sonka takes the case, on this episode of Curious Louisville.

It sits alongside a brick building in Louisville’s NuLu neighborhood. It’s a metal box, about the size of a dresser, or maybe a deep freezer, but a little taller. And it makes a beeping sound. Sort of an alarm, but so quiet you can't hear it until you're close to the box. It's been described as "quietly having a meltdown." Local lore says it's been beeping this way for years, and no one knows why. On this episode, a curious community member named Ben Falstrom joins LPM's Giselle Rhoden to find out more. Thanks to Mary Basso for submitting this question, and to BIGFAKE for creating the beeping box remix you hear on this episode. Ask a question of your own at CuriousLouisville.org.

At the corner of Brook and Oak Streets in Old Louisville sits a building that started out as the duPont Manual Training High School, back in 1892. When Dan Trabue moved to the neighborhood around 25 years ago, he noticed something curious near the building's roofline: six round medallions, each with a face staring out over the neighborhood. "I was curious who they were and I couldn't really see them that well," Dan says. "I asked around a little bit and looked online, didn't find anything, and I've tried a couple times and then eventually gave up." Until he sent his question to Curious Louisville. Dan is a Manual High alum, and so were his dad and grandpa. And so is LPM's Breya Jones, who saw his quandary and decided to help find some answers.

"Whose voice is that on the the walk sign at Douglass Loop and Bardstown Road? I go through that area quite a bit, and at some point I noticed that there was a voice, and that the voice didn't sound like they were from Louisville." That's what Dan Pike and many other people have been curious about over the years. So he sent his message to Curious Louisville, and LPM's Giselle Rhoden was up for the challenge. Have a burning question about our community? Visit curiouslouisville.org to share it, and we may help you answer yours next!

You may have seen it while driving down Lexington road, away from downtown, just before Headliners Music Hall. A retaining wall in the side of the hill... with a door in the middle. What's behind it? It's a question we get a lot at Curious Louisville. On this episode, Ashlie Stevens takes us behind the door.More Info

For fourteen years, Robert Miles has seen cars in ditches, in neighbor’s yards and in his own fencing that borders the boundary of the horse farm his family owns. He lives off Todds Point Road in Shelby County. “It’s horrific, you’re taking your life in your hands every time you go through,” Miles said of a particular curve in the road. Todds Point is an idyllic rural road going through horse country. But it’s narrow, and doesn’t have white outer edge lines that could help drivers stay on the road. Miles asked Curious Louisville: “Why do some roads have white outer lines and others don’t? What determines who gets what paint?” WFPL reporter Lisa Gillespie went looking for the answer.

The United States prides itself on a kind of rugged individualism. We like to think we do things our own way here. So while the rest of the world uses the metric system, here in America, we use a system based on inches, feet, yards and miles. Except on a particular stretch of Louisville highway. Lots of you asked us why. On this episode, WFPL's Ashlie Stevens finds out. Curious Louisville wouldn't be possible without you! Click here to support the work we do: http://donate.curiouslouisville.org +

Woody Woodpecker. Donald Duck. Iago from “Aladdin." Louie, the U of L cardinal. All these birds have something in common: at various points in their histories, they have been depicted with a full toothy grin. Which leads to our latest Curious Louisville question from Rachel Peterson: “Why does the U of L cardinal mascot have teeth?” “Birds don’t have teeth,” Rachel said. “I get that it’s trying to look fierce, but it’s just biologically inaccurate." WFPL’s Liz Schlemmer and Ashlie Stevens looked for an answer.

Nadeem Saddiqui and his family recently moved to Valley Station, in the southeastern part of Louisville. "It's stereotypically not the most multi-cultural area of Louisville," he said. So it surprised him to see a street named Omar Khayyam Blvd. "It was a medieval Persian poet," he said. "Growing up my parents had a lot of books of his poetry." Nadeem wanted to know how this street came to be, in this neighborhood. So we went looking for the answer.

Support Curious Louisville: Curious Louisville is all about you. You send us your questions, and we take you along with us on a search for the answer. It's people-powered. In fact, our whole organization here is people-powered -- it's because of your support that we can do the work we do. Join us with a pledge today, and we pledge in return to keep letting your curiosity be our guide! Click here to give. Thank you! History is full of untold stories, and today on Curious Louisville, we're telling one. It's about two sisters who had a lasting impact on Louisville, and whose graves are here, even though they never lived in the city: Mary Elizabeth and Mary Gwendolyn Caldwell. Listener Chuck Rogalinski wrote us: “Will you tell the story of the two sisters who weren’t born in Louisville, owned property in the city, married into European aristocracy and are buried in Cave Hill?” In today's edition of Curious Louisville, we do just that.

Is it art? Is it crime? A little bit of both? Whatever it is, it's part of your morning commute. "Every morning when I commute to work, no matter which way I go, I started to see more and more graffiti on the back of the signs," Joe Sullivan reported. "I saw it and I thought, I hope they take that down, because if they don't take it away, it's just going to embolden people to do more. And it seems to have." Joe says he sees the artistic talent on display in some graffiti. But he also thinks it's distracting to drivers, and a bad look for the city. "It sort of gives the impression that we're not taking care of things." So Joe asked Curious Louisville, who's cleaning that up? WFPL's Ryan Van Velzer took up the mantle. And the answer takes us on a commute of our own, through both sides of the art/vandalism debate.

Every year at the beginning of Lent, (the period in the Christian calendar between Ash Wednesday and Easter) WFPL publishes a guide to all the fish fries in Louisville. It's always one of our most popular stories of the year. There are Facebook groups dedicated solely to rating the different fish fries around town. And hundreds upon hundreds of people line up in our city's churches every Friday night to eat fried fish, hush puppies, and macaroni and cheese. This made US curious: Why exactly are there so many Catholic fish fries in the city? And what (aside from the delicious food) makes them so popular? WFPL's Ashlie Stevens investigates, in this edition of Curious Louisville.

Louisville is a city of neighborhoods. For a lot of people, where they live is a big part of their identity. And Curious Louisville listener Evan Patrick wondered about how one neighborhood developed an identity of its own. WFPL’s Ashlie Stevens looked into the answer.

In the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome, a young Muhammad Ali -- then called Cassius Clay -- defeated three-time European boxing champion Zbigniew Pietrzykowski. He returned to Louisville with a gold medal, which he wore around his neck for days afterwards; some biographers say he even slept with it around his neck. But then, the medal disappeared, and its fate has long been the topic of sports media speculation (despite the fact that he received a replacement medal in 1996). One prevailing theory is that Ali had been turned away from a restaurant because he was black, so he tossed his medal off the Second Street Bridge into the Ohio River. But in interviews, Ali never gave a definitive answer regarding the medal’s location. An Ali fan named Ray Watkins asked Curious Louisville to help him find out, once and for all. WFPL's Kyeland Jackson took on the challenge. You can ask your own Curious Louisville question at curiouslouisville.org.

It was supposed to be Louisville’s answer to the St. Louis arch. But in the press, it was eventually called ugly. A turkey A good idea gone bad. It’s been gone since 1998, but not entirely forgotten. In fact, it’s been on Curious Louisville listener Mark Friedland’s mind: Whatever happened to the Falls Fountain? In this edition of Curious Louisville, we find out the answer.

If you're driving downtown near the river, you can't miss it: a brand new paint job in progress on the Clark Memorial Bridge. We've heard it compared to a school bus, a canary, and butter. Curious Louisville listener Allan Steinberg wanted to know how the color was chosen. (Allan's not a fan: "I was hoping it was only the primer!") WFPL's Amina Elahi went to Rebecca Metheny, the director of the Louisville Downtown Partnership. They're responsible for the paint job, and they also oversaw the KFC Yum Center design and construction--and it turns out, the two are related. Great questions make great stories, and Curious Louisville wants yours! Send us your question at CuriousLouisville.org. You and your curiosity might be featured in a future story.