Are historic buildings worth saving?
The first time I saw Lexington, Kentucky was in 1972. I was attending the Kentucky High School Speech League summer institute. Marguerite, the mother of one of my speech club friends, drove us up I-75 and down the tree-lined thoroughfare of Richmond Road. Before heading for the University of Kentucky campus, we swung by the fashionable Phoenix Hotel.
The Phoenix was also historic: it was visited by Col. Aaron Burr, as well as Gen. Braxton Bragg and Gen. Kirby Smith during the Civil war. The lobby was glamorous and exotic, with its massive leather sofas and stately palms.
Marguerite ordered a cocktail with her lunch. Growing up in a Baptist family in the small city of Middlesboro, this was the first time I saw a person drink alcohol in public, and the first time I had seen a woman drink a cocktail.
Blanding Kirwan Towers, University of Kentucky
