PAL Coalition

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Excerpt from the Project Narrative

Community Overview - Seventh Street Corridor

Demographics and Relevant Census Data: The PAL Coalition of the 7th Street Corridor (PAL stands for the three neighborhoods, Park Hill, Algonquin and Old Louisville) encompasses four census tracts. These census tracts are 35, 36, 39 and 53 and include partial zip codes 40215, 40208, 40210. These census tracts include three distinctive but connected neighborhoods; ParkHill, Algonquin and Old Louisville. These neighborhoods have been divided by the CSX railroad tracks with the east side housing the merchant class and the west side housing the working class. The neighborhoods start just south of the downtown business district heading south to two main city jewels, the University of Louisville and Churchill Downs. The community expands east to Interstate 65 and west to 16' Street, north to Hill Street and south to Berry Boulevard.

The Parkway Place public housing complex is located within the PAL target area and was developed in the 1940's. The housing development is an island of dense military barrack-style residential structures surrounded by industrial properties, brownfields, and an electrical substation. It is geographically, socially, and economically isolated. According to the Louisville Metro Housing Authority, there are 583 occupied units of which 43 8 list female heads of households and 100 families are Somali-Bantu (which can include up to 500 individuals because of large family sizes.) The average income is $8,029.

Also located within the PAL community are the Arcadia Park Apartment Homes. These 432two-bedroom fourplexes were built in 1948. Over the years, the apartments have changed ownership and management several times, and in the process, slowly moved into a state of complete deterioration. Over the past five years, Arcadia has changed as more refugee and immigrant families have made Arcadia their home. There are families representing over 15different countries, speaking more than 25 languages and dialects. Louisville is now home to the largest Somali Bantu population in the country.

An African-American institution, Simmons College of Kentucky, began in the Park Hill neighborhood in 1879 and has regained its status as a community motivator for change. ParkHill is the predominantly industrial area of this community. Algonquin is primarily residential and includes two parks, Algonquin Park and Samuel D. Jones. Old Louisville has the largest preservation district in the city, featuring almost entirely Victorian architecture with a large number of blocks that have had few or no buildings razed. Each was divided by economics and race. The area is now currently home to a diverse population with a high concentration of students, single parents, and white and blue collar job holders.

Despite some economic revitalization efforts the Seventh Street Corridor still has the twin urban problems such as concentrated poverty and crime. The community has a poverty rate of 29%.This rate is 2.3 times high than the Louisville-Jefferson county rate of 12%. The tracts also vary with the rate of poverty in tract 35 at 75%, Tract 53 at 37%, Tract 36 at 20% and Tract 39 at18%. In face of these obstacles the residents of the area have been working together to enliven their main commercial streets of Hill Street, which runs east and west, and 7' Street, which runs north and south as well as address the effects of brownfields on the health and viability of their neighborhoods.

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