Cool New Things

Possibility City doesn't stand still.

A few years from now, you might walk out of the new downtown arena, after a Saturday afternoon game the Cards have won on a last-second, triple-overtime jumper.

You'll walk down the block for a drink in the Iron Quarter, marveling again at how such a modern development could be built into what not long ago was a crumbling series of 19th-century buildings - without losing the distinction of those remarkable cast-iron storefronts.

Over the drink, you get arguing. Museum Plaza, that 62-story blend of offices, condos, retail and a hotel just six blocks west along the river: Is its vaguely H-shaped profile a tribute to modern sculpture, or the kind of thing you used to make with Legos? The debate gets so heated you walk over to the Plaza's contemporary art center to search for examples on both sides of the argument.

But you're not ready to end the evening yet, so you walk up for dinner and a movie at Center City - the sort of annex to Fourth Street Live! that extends for six blocks along Muhammad Ali Boulevard.

Moral: There are more exciting new projects underway these days than Louisville has seen in a long time. The long-awaited Kentucky Center for African American Heritage... the City of Parks initiative, greatly expanding our already-great parks system... more housing developments downtown and along the river than we can keep track of.

The hits - and the possibilities - just keep on coming.