The Bluegrass and Beyond

A tug pushes gravel barges up the Mississippi River at Columbus in Hickman County.

Linemen for Galaxy Cablevision work in Milburn in Carlisle County. Photos by Tom Eblen

Kentuckians often describe the length and diversity of their state with the phrase, “From Pikeville to Paducah.” But there’s still a lot of Kentucky west past Paducah. I spent Thursday evening driving past rich fields of corn and pretty little communities along Highway 80 between Mayfield and the Mississippi River. What a sweet summer evening. Once the sun set, the bugs were so thick they sounded like sleet on my windshield.

I began this blog four months ago, and it already has been read more than 50,000 times, as of yesterday afternoon. That pales in comparison to the daily readership of columns that appear in the newspaper and those posted directly on kentucky.com, but it’s not a bad start.

Even better, though, is that readers have left more than 730 comments so far. Like any online forum, this blog has its share of anonymous trolls. But most of those leaving comments are behaving themselves. Some are using their real names, which I encourage. And many, many readers on all sides of various issues have left thoughtful, passionate comments that have enriched our civic conversation. That’s the goal.

I’m leaving soon for Fancy Farm in Graves County, looking forward to a weekend of lively political debates and some of the best barbecue around. Watch the Herald-Leader, Kentucky.com and this blog Saturday and Sunday for reports on both.

With all of the discussion about downtown development, I’ve been thinking about public space — what makes it work and what doesn’t.

For 10 years, I’ve worked across Midland Avenue from Thoroughbred Park, one of downtown Lexington’s jewels. The front of the park is a people magnet. I almost never walk or drive by without seeing someone there examining sculptor Gwen Reardon’s amazing horses and jockeys.

Most of the time, people are taking pictures, too. If you search the online photo-sharing site Flickr, you’ll see that people have posted dozens of pictures of that bronze horse race and the beautiful stone fence behind it. This time of year, the fountain also gets a good workout from hot children taking a dip.

The back side of the park simulates the rolling horse-farm fields of Central Kentucky. In the middle is a long lawn. The park has trees and nice benches, which are almost always empty. It looks like a great place to eat lunch on a pretty day, but I never see anyone do it. I think I’ve done it only once or twice. I wonder why I don’t go more often?

On a recent vacation trip to New York, I spent some time in Bryant Park, behind the New York Public Library in Midtown. A few years ago, the park was rescued from drug dealers and prostitutes. The city fixed it up and turned it over to private management. There’s a beautiful lawn, often with a stage at the end, shade-tree alleys on each side, carts of books for people to read and free wireless Internet access.

This oasis in Manhattan’s concrete jungle is always full of people reading, relaxing, working on their computers or meeting with friends. A lot of things make Bryant Park work, but the key may be the little green bistro chairs. The park has hundreds of these elegantly simple, lightweight metal chairs with wooden-slat seats and backs. There also are matching tables and stools. People can move them anywhere around the park and group them in ways that meet their needs at the moment. (Good security and management keeps them from leaving the park.)

Walk into Bryant Park early on a summer morning and you’ll see lots of interesting arrangements of empty chairs and tables. You can almost see the activity and hear the conversations from the day before. Even when it’s empty, Bryant Park looks like a busy place where people love to be.

Often, it’s not the grand plan but the small touches that make the difference, whether they are exquisite works of public art or simple green chairs.

As I watch The Dame on Main Street being demolished, I see a neglected, century-old building that could have been reused to give the proposed CentrePointe development more character and class.

But many others - people the age of my daughters - see something different: They see the loss of an important piece of their culture. To them, it’s almost as if somebody took a wrecking ball to the Lexington Opera House or the grandstand at Keeneland.

The circa 1901 building that housed The Dame is being demolished to make way for the CentrePointe development. Photo by Mark Cornelison

One of those people is Matt Jordan, 22, a University of Kentucky senior from Elizabethtown. I got to know him last year when he was a student in the journalism class I teach.

Jordan’s passion is music, and last month he wrote a touching piece in the Kentucky Kernel, UK’s student newspaper, about what The Dame meant to him and his generation.

“It was a cultural breeding ground for Lexington that can’t be bought, copied or easily replicated,” he wrote. “This one venue drew together punk rockers, bluegrass purists, Latin dancers, indie hipsters and average Joes … It was a gift while it lasted.”

When I called Jordan the other day, he had trouble putting into words what made The Dame special during the five years it existed. It wasn’t the building or location, although both were great. It was the way the club became a magnet for up-and-coming musicians and their fans, and the way it created a sense that buttoned-down Lexington could be a cool place for young people to live.

No urban planning expert planned it, no architect designed it, no developer built it. It grew organically and became an artistic success, if not always a financial one.

“I don’t want to say The Dame was the Lexington music scene, but it was pretty much the most important spot,” Jordan said, noting the club’s willingness to take risks on emerging bands and artists with limited appeal. “They were willing to book almost anybody once.”

While The Dame was most popular among over-21 college students and young professionals, it also attracted regular patrons in their 30s, 40s - and a few older ones.

The Dame’s owner, Tom Yost, said Tuesday he is actively looking for a new location either downtown or close to UK.

“We haven’t found the right fit yet,” Yost said. “Several landlords have come to us, and the support in the community has been off the charts.”

Jordan said he hopes it doesn’t take much longer for The Dame to reopen or a similar venue to emerge.

Fans standing in line at The Dame braved frigid temperatures to see Kenny Chesney perform in March. Chesney was the biggest act to play at the club, which took a chance on up-and-coming performers. Photo by David Stephenson

“I was in Athens, Ga., recently, and several musicians I know asked about The Dame and said, ‘So where do we play there now?’” he said. “The Dame was something that made people my age proud of Lexington and gave them a reason to stay here.”

Jordan noted that the fire marshal last February closed The Ice House, on Cross Street off West Maxwell, which was becoming a popular venue. It wasn’t zoned as a music club, and there were fire safety concerns. Local officials also have shut down performances in residential neighborhoods. Jordan doesn’t blame the officials; they’ve done the right thing, given the circumstances.

“But it just seems that this city keeps sabotaging itself,” he said.

There aren’t many places in Lexington for twentysomethings - and almost nowhere for those younger than 21 - to go for cutting-edge music.

However, Jordan is encouraged by growing support among city officials and business leaders for creating downtown entertainment venues. Good things are happening at Victorian Square, and ambitious proposals have been made for entertainment districts along Manchester Street and around Cheapside.

When Commerce Lexington took 175 local leaders to Austin, Texas, in early June, officials there stressed the huge role live music and entertainment play in their city’s economic vitality.

Austin civic and business leaders have figured out how to nurture music clubs and other venues, which often aren’t the most profitable enterprises, because they realize they help provide the quality of life sought by bright, creative people - especially up-and-coming young people. Those are the people who power the companies that can become a city’s economic engines of the future.

Many Lexington leaders seem to get it. There has been a lot of encouraging talk, and some good work done by the city’s Downtown Entertainment Task Force.

Matt Jordan is a bright, creative guy - the kind Lexington needs to attract and keep. While middle-aged professionals like me have been fretting about the future of the media business, Matt has been creating it. His blog, www.youaintnopicasso.com, covers popular music and attracts enough readers and advertising to pay his rent.

Jordan graduates from UK in December. He hasn’t decided whether to stay in Lexington, although he would like to. Where else might he go?

“I would love to move to Austin, Texas, which has tons of appeal,” he said.

There are many important questions to consider as we watch bulldozers finish clearing debris from what was The Dame. Here are three of them: Will The Dame reopen or be replaced? Will bright, young people find reasons to stay in Lexington? What more can we do to keep them?

READ music critic Walter Tunis’ reflections on the dame at his blog, The Musical Box.

To many people, Henry Clay is a slightly familiar name from the distant past. Wasn’t he a politician? Didn’t he live in Lexington?

But to the 51 rising university seniors from 50 states and the District of Columbia who head home Saturday after spending a week in Lexington, Clay is now much more. Their study of his legacy may help them change the world someday.

At least, that’s the goal of the Henry Clay Center for Statesmanship’s first Student Congress, which was held at the University of Kentucky and Transylvania University. The center was created last year by the Henry Clay Memorial Foundation, which operates Clay’s Ashland estate on Sycamore Road.

Clay, who lived from 1777 to 1852, was one of America’s greatest statesmen. He represented Kentucky in the U.S. House and Senate, was speaker of the House and ran unsuccessfully for president several times.

Known as ”The Great Compromiser,“ he negotiated the treaty that ended the War of 1812 and engineered compromises in Congress that stalled the Civil War three times.

The center’s goal is to promote Clay’s ideals and skills of conflict resolution, conciliation and compromise in a nation and world that badly needs them.

”If you look at the world today and the polarization – red and blue – at home, we could certainly use more compromise and win-win conflict resolution skills,“ said advertising executive Bill Giles, who co-chairs the center with Thoroughbred breeder Robert N. Clay.

The effort – one of those big ideas that makes so much sense you wonder why somebody didn’t think of it sooner – was the brainchild of several Kentuckians. It has picked up heavyweight support, both locally and around the country. The national advisory committee is chaired by retired Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, the first woman appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court, and Nancy Kassebaum-Baker, who before retirement was an influential U.S. senator from Kansas.

Eventually, the organization hopes to leverage Clay’s legacy into a Lexington-based center for international conflict resolution, perhaps playing a role similar to that of the Carter Center in Atlanta. The first step is the Student Congress, which will become an annual event.

”It’s extremely timely, especially when you listen over the past decade to the decline in the quality of the national and global debate,“ said D.G. Van Clief, the center’s president and a former president of the Breeders’ Cup. ”This is a terrific opportunity to build awareness of these skills in young people, skills they’ll need to be good executives, jurists and diplomats.“

Carey Cavanaugh, director of UK's Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce, spoke to students participating in the first Student Congress of the Henry Clay Center for Statesmanship this past week. Photos by Tom Eblen

The students were nominated by U.S. senators and university officials. They were an impressive and diverse group, men and women of all races and political persuasions. About 75 percent were political science majors and minors, and they came to Lexington with considerable experience. Many had studied overseas or worked in congressional or governor’s offices.

The students spent a couple of days studying Henry Clay, his ideals and how they relate to today’s world.

They visited Ashland and heard from Clay scholars. They visited Frankfort to discuss state and local governance, then turned their attention to international affairs and the importance of diplomacy and dialogue.

Kassebaum-Baker spoke Wednesday night after a dinner at Three Chimneys Farm, and O’Connor sent videotaped remarks.

Carey Cavanaugh, a former ambassador and peace negotiator who directs UK’s Patterson School of Diplomacy, led much of the program and lined up a strong group of speakers.

They included a United Nations official now negotiating a dispute in Asia; New York Times and MSNBC political reporter John Harwood; and Andreas Kakouris, Cyprus’ ambassador to the United States.

Carey Cavanaugh, director of UK's Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce, left, talks with Mindy Shannon Phelps, executive director of the Henry Clay Center for Statesmanship, and D.G. Van Clief, the center's president.

”In the past five days, it’s hard to think of a corner of the world we haven’t touched on in the discussions,“ Cavanaugh said. ”They had a number of people talk to them who are dealing with world problems that are happening right now. It has given the students perspectives they wouldn’t have gotten at their schools.“

Indeed, in Cavanaugh’s debriefing with the students Friday, they raved about the program – but weren’t shy about offering suggestions.

”I learned more this week about foreign policy than I learned all last semester in foreign policy class,“ said Elizabeth Edwards, a student at Catawba College in North Carolina who had spent a year interning for former U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole, R-N.C. ”I’ve never met so many people my age who are so smart and love our country so much.“

Alex Bachari, a Loyola University music major who is the Louisiana campaign coordinator for Students for Barack Obama, said he felt inspired and empowered by Clay’s legacy and the Student Congress.

”You guys expect us to lead the Free World in a positive way,“ Bachari said. ”After coming to this program, I feel like I can go out and do anything I want. And I know everybody here feels the same way.“

Sitting in the sessions and listening to this remarkable group of young people ask questions and discuss issues, I got the impression that many of them will be running our government, corporations and major institutions in a couple of decades. And that’s a good thing.

Henry Clay would certainly be proud.

The Webb Companies’ motto is ”Developing Tomorrow’s Landmarks.“

A more appropriate one might be ”Stuck in the 1980s.“

The company’s handling of the ­CentrePointe hotel-condo-retail project has reeked of 1980s development strategy: Plan in secret, avoid public input, cut back-room deals with key city leaders, bulldoze citizen opposition and bulldoze the site.

As a Herald-Leader editorial pointed out Wednesday, the whole fiasco has been a failure of civic leadership and public process.

It also has been a failure of imagination by developers Dudley and Woodford Webb and by Joe Rosenberg, who owns much of the block.

The wrecking machine has torn down several buildings and may soon come for the one truly historic building on the block, which has for years housed Rosenberg’s jewelry and pawnshop.

Built in 1826 as part of ”Morton’s Row,“ it is downtown’s second-oldest commercial building. If it looks dilapidated, you can blame Rosenberg’s neglect of the building.

Dudley Webb has said that none of the buildings on the block is truly historic. ”It’s not like Lincoln ever shopped there,“ he once said. (Actually, Abraham Lincoln may have shopped there. It was a store when he visited his in-laws in Lexington.)

Until the past couple of decades, buildings weren’t considered worthy of preservation unless they were associated with a famous person or event, or unless they remained architecturally intact and in their historic context.

Since the 1980s, though, preservationists and urban planners have seen another value for old urban buildings of character, even if they weren’t ”historic“ by the traditional definition. They don’t want to preserve them as relics, or save them as museums. They want to incorporate them, or their façades, into contemporary buildings with new uses.

If you’ve listened to Webb’s critics — from Vice Mayor Jim Gray to the Blue Grass Trust for Historic Preservation to the citizens’ group Preserve Lexington — that’s what they’ve argued for all along.

Why? Such ”historic fabric“ reflects a city’s history and unique sense of place. And when old and new are woven together in creative ways, it makes for a more interesting — and valuable — development.

If that weren’t the case, you wouldn’t see that kind of project being done all over the country — and all over the world. The old buildings are those developments’ prime space for restaurants, bars and shops. That’s because they are unique and inviting, and they give a project a human scale.

I just came back from a few days in New York City and was amazed at the transformation of the SoHo neighborhood, where formerly dilapidated old industrial buildings with cast-iron façades have been turned into ritzy shops and some of the city’s most expensive loft apartments. Streets that were deserted in the 1980s are now filled with people.

By contrast, ­CentrePointe’s massive, monolithic design looks like what developers were building in Atlanta in the late 1980s when I was living there. Granted, many Lexingtonians would prefer that to some cutting-edge modern architecture. And it’s certainly better than all of the ugly 1970s-style buildings Lexington is saddled with downtown, on the UK campus and at schoolyards and office parks around town.

But as many architects, developers and construction executives have told me, CentrePointe could be so much better than the renderings Dudley Webb unveiled in March. And it would be a more successful project if he had engaged the public and gotten more creative professional advice.

That’s sad, because CentrePointe could define downtown Lexington for a century.

A development that could creatively blend Lexington’s colorful past with architecture that looks toward the future would be much more inspiring, especially to the bright young people Lexington needs to attract and retain. Those people may have been born in the 1980s, but they won’t stay long in a city that looks like it’s stuck there.

*******

Here are several examples of historic buildings and architecture mixed into contemporary redevelopment. Do you know of other good examples? Send me an email with a photo or link.

Beverly Fortune’s story Tuesday and my column Wednesday gave an overview of three alternative design concepts for CentrePointe that were developed over the weekend by students at the University of Kentucky’s College of Design working with prominent architects and designers from UK, Los Angeles and Chicago.

The goal of the 48-hour workshop wasn’t to develop finished designs or exact plans. It was to look at ways the 1.7-acre block could be used to accomplish the goals developer Dudley Webb has stated as well as to create inviting street-level space and a signature piece of architecture. The main goal, though, was to stimulate thinking and explore possibilities.

Here are some of the renderings the three teams came up with during the workshop, which was organized by Michael Speaks, the dean of the college, and architecture faculty member Drura Parrish. The workshop also included advisers from UK’s Historic Preservation Program.

The first group of concept designs was developed by a team led by UK faculty members Liz Swanson and Mike McKay. Swanson and McKay have been based in New Orleans for the past three years leading a UK design studio there. The second group was developed by the team led by Paul Preissner of Chicago, head of Quavirarch and a faculty member at the University of Illinois at Chicago. The third group was developed by a team led by Heather Flood and Ramiro Diaz Granados of Los Angeles, partners in the design firm of F-Lab and faculty members at the Southern California Institute of Architecture. Click on each photo to enlarge it.

I wasn’t surprised by the public’s negative reaction to three out-of-the-box designs dreamed up over the weekend as alternatives to Dudley Webb’s proposed CentrePointe tower.

A story in Tuesday’s Herald-Leader included renderings of the concepts developed during a marathon 48-hour workshop. The designs were done by three teams of students from the University of Kentucky’s College of Design working under prominent architects from UK, Los Angeles and Chicago.

The designs were unconventional. A couple of them were almost bizarre. They were nothing like traditional Lexington architecture. And they were nothing like Webb’s 1980s-style glass tower that has been criticized as too massive and bland to put in the middle of Lexington for the next century or so.

Readers posted dozens of comments about the designs on Kentucky.com — and most of them were scathing.

I understood the reaction. It was my first reaction, too.

Then I took a deep breath and thought again.

These weren’t finished plans, or even real ­proposals. They weren’t meant to be. They were creative ideas, developed quickly and offered up to spark other ideas that might lead to something special. That’s the way innovation works.

Like Webb, I was out of town Monday and couldn’t attend the students’ presentation. So I went over to UK on Tuesday to get a briefing from Michael Speaks, the college’s dean, who organized the workshop.

”It’s a lot of stuff to do in a couple of days,“ Speaks said before walking me through each concept. ”These are not final designs by any stretch of the imagination. But they show what can be done.“

Each team was told to confine itself to the block and try to stay true to the ­CentrePointe proposal — a hotel, luxury condos, a restaurant and retail space.

”These architects approached this in very different ways,“ Speaks said. But he noted that there were many things all of the designs had in common.

All three teams wanted to keep some of the historic buildings that have been a big part of the CentrePointe controversy and weave them into contemporary new construction. The most valued buildings were the Joe Rosenberg building, which dates to 1826, and the century-old building that housed The Dame music club.

All of the teams wanted to keep the Farmers Market on the block, and some added an amphitheater, a small park and other public space. Indeed, perhaps the most appealing part of all of the concepts was how they offered open, inviting pedestrian space at street level.

All three teams thought the project could be more effectively developed in phases, rather than all at once. And they all thought Webb was trying to cram too much square-footage onto the 1.7-acre block.

All chose to have several towers, rather than the one monolith Webb has proposed.

Speaks noted that in all of the designs, the towers were the wildest and least-finished part of the concepts — and the part that elicited the most negative public reaction.

”You look at these project concepts and think how crazy they are,“ Speaks said. ”Then watch the Olympics, look at what they’ve recently built in Beijing, and think again. They won’t look so crazy a month from now.“

By late afternoon Tuesday, more than 1,500 people had voted for their favorite design in the Kentucky.com poll. Webb’s design was leading the closest alternative 2-to-1.

”We’d be surprised if CentrePointe wasn’t winning, in a way,“ Speaks said. ”A lot of people want to support what’s easy, what they’re used to seeing, what’s being done elsewhere.“

Of course, the workshop process was all backward. This type of brainstorming session should have been done at the beginning, as has been done by developers of the proposed Lexington Distillery District project on Manchester Street.

Architecture workshops like this are intended to look at the location, the surrounding areas, and the needs a building is trying to satisfy, and to explore ways to meet those needs.

The goal is to produce a design that solves all of the development’s ”problems“ and adds something more: Value for an entire area, or even a city.

CentrePointe, on the other hand, was developed in secret and unveiled as a done deal. Webb has wanted no creative or public input. So it looks like we’re stuck with a piece of recycled architecture two decades out of date.

CentrePointe seems to be a done deal, and Webb might continue to thumb his nose at critics.

But public discussion surrounding CentrePointe and the awareness of downtown development it has created might pay off in the future.

”I don’t care how many people laugh and make fun of these projects,“ Speaks said as he paged through the three workshop concepts on his desktop computer.

Then he clicked on ­Kentucky.com to check the latest online poll results.

”If we can get 1,500 people to look at these ideas and think about design, then we’ve accomplished something.“

When she heard that Dawahares Inc. was closing nine of its 31 stores in a dramatic bid to survive, a longtime customer went to the Fayette Mall store and bought a couple of hundred dollars’ worth of clothing.

”She said, “I’m sorry I can’t afford to buy more,’“ said Richard Dawahare, his voice cracking. ”She was trying to help us out.“

A month later, when the rescue plan fell short and Dawahare’s announced it was going out of business, customers began stopping by the Pikeville store to pay their respects.

”That was the term they used … pay their respects,“ said Harding Dawahare, the president and CEO. ”They just came in to share their stories about how much they loved Dawahare’s over the years.“

From Pikeville to Paducah, Dawahare’s might be the state’s best-known family business. It’s no wonder: Kentuckians have been trading with the Dawahare family since 1907, when Serur Frank Dawahare moved to Appalachia and began carrying a peddler’s pack through the coal camps.

The company’s demise has saddened loyal customers, but there’s only one way to describe the Dawahares’ feelings: It’s like a death in the family.

”The family and the business were almost one and the same,“ said Harding, 57, one of six grandsons of S.F. Dawahare now working in the company, along with two great-grandchildren. ”It was very, very difficult to separate the two.“

S.F. Dawahare came to New York City from Damascus at the turn of the last century and met his wife, Selma, at a Syrian singles dance. On the advice of her brother, they moved south, thinking there might be opportunity for a merchant in the booming coal fields.

The Dawahares saved enough money to open their first store in East Jenkins in 1911. Within a few years, the business was growing almost as fast as the family, which included eight sons and three daughters. Grateful to his adopted country, Serur named three of his sons after U.S. presidents — Woodrow Wilson Dawahare, Warren Harding Dawahare and Herbert Hoover Dawahare.

S.F.’s goal was to have a store for each son — the daughters were expected to find husbands — and he almost did it by the time he died in 1951. The family expanded to Lexington in 1961, building a flagship store in Gardenside Shopping Center.

Eventually, the company would have Dawahare’s clothing and Cat Bird Seat collegiate apparel stores scattered throughout Kentucky and across the line in West Virginia. Liquidation sales began Friday.

A family, a company

The end has been hardest on S.F.’s four surviving sons, who are retired from company leadership and declined to be interviewed.

Last week, five of the third-generation Dawahares working in the company gathered around their big oak conference table. The cramped corporate offices were dark and quiet; employees were paid through last week, but there was no longer a need for many of them to come to work.

The Dawahare cousins spent the week tying up loose ends and turning the company’s inventory over to liquidators. They also were coming to grips with the loss of an institution that has been such a big part of their family.

S.F. taught his sons the ethic of many hard-working immigrants: Whatever happens, stick together. All made careers in the family business except for Hoover, who loved politics and represented Whitesburg in the state House of Representatives for a dozen years.

He operated Hoover’s furniture stores in Lexington, Hazard and Whitesburg. It was a separate company, but ties remained close. Brother A.F. Dawahare, who retired as Dawahare’s CEO in 2001, now runs Hoover’s, which remains in business.

”My uncles, especially, could not and still do not separate the business and the family,“ Harding said. ”Our generation has tried a little bit more to separate the two. Even though they’re intertwined, we try to run the business like a business and the family as the family.“

There was tension when some younger Dawahares wanted to pursue other passions. They left for careers as a caterer, a hedge-fund manager and a foreign correspondent, among other things.

”My uncles would say if you were leaving the business, you were leaving the family,“ Harding said. ”And we would say, no, you’re still in the family, you just choose not to be in the business.“

Richard, 53, studied to be a lawyer. ”My dad just said, “Do whatever you want to in life, but you’re crazy if you don’t take advantage of this opportunity“ to be part of the business, he said.

Richard passed the bar, but his first job offer came from Macy’s in Kansas City. He soon realized that retailing was his passion after all.

”I came back because I love my cousins,“ he said. ”And I love the uncles first. They were like Santa Claus my whole life. Not just giving stuff, but it was fun. It’s impossible to overstate how much joy there was my whole life around the uncles.“

Said Harding: ”The cousins all grew up like brothers and sisters.“

The Dawahares have always been an opinionated, outspoken bunch.

”Fighting internally about the business is not a bad thing,“ Harding said. ”It’s a good thing for people to try to get their point of view expressed and out on the table. For the most part, we’ve always fought with each other from a position of respect, most of the time.“

Even last week, the darkest of times, there was affectionate humor to break the tension.

Joe Dawahare joined the interview late, and he was introduced as the corporate attorney, secretary and treasurer. ”So, really, this is all his fault,“ Harding quipped. Everyone laughed except Joe, who didn’t catch the remark. ”What did you say?“

At another point, Richard was waxing poetically about the company’s emphasis on customer satisfaction. ”We never would let a customer down. Never!“ he said.

”Well, I did once,“ Harding deadpanned.

More laughter.

What went wrong?

Hindsight and regrets are inevitable. For example: not making the successful Cat Bird Seat stores, which sell University of Kentucky and University of Louisville branded merchandise, a separate company.

But it’s a miracle Dawahare’s Inc. lasted as long as it did. Most family-owned retailers were out of business by the 1980s. In the past few months, the softening economy has taken down other retailers such as Goody’s Family Clothing.

Dawahare’s always survived by knowing its customers, serving small towns and finding niches that set it apart from competitors. ”We had some good merchandising skills that kept us competitive with the best of the best,“ Harding said.

But challenges kept coming. Clothing prices have been flat for a decade, yet wages and other business costs continued to rise. National chains were able to buy goods cheaper than Dawahare’s, further squeezing its profit margins.

Take, for example, designer Tommy Hilfiger’s popular clothing. ”When Tommy was hot and people wanted it, there was only one place to get it in the small towns, and that was us,“ Harding said. Then, late last year, Hilfiger eliminated two lines and signed an exclusive deal with Macy’s. Suddenly, $5 million in sales became zero.

The potential for growth in small towns is limited. And it didn’t always help that Dawahare’s sold clothes for all ages. Big competitors could focus on niches, such as young people, and market more effectively to them.

”We had a core base of customers who loved us,“ Harding said. ”We just could not grow our market share.

”We actually did have a plan in place that would have shown profitability this year,“ he said. ”We eliminated one-third of our corporate overhead, and we cut another 10 percent out of store payroll and other expenses. But the cash flow wasn’t there“ to quickly repay $5 million in debt to Fifth Third Bank.

”I have to say that Fifth Third has been a great partner,“ Harding said. ”They’ve worked with us over the last two years. It’s not their fault that we’re in this situation; it’s our fault.“

Saying goodbye

What’s next for the Dawahare family?

”I think most of us are looking for jobs,“ Harding said.

There are thoughts about trying to buy some of the stores out of bankruptcy. Richard mused about running stores as community co-ops. Harding rolled his eyes. ”Don’t associate my name with that,“ he said.

Amid the sadness, there is also guilt. Justified or not, there’s no escaping it.

”You feel like you let your family down, you let the employees down,“ Harding said, noting that 500 people will soon be without jobs.

”We tried hard, we worked hard. We never ran a business where the owners went and played while everyone else worked. We all had jobs with responsibilities, and we showed up every day to do them. But there’s always the sense that we didn’t get it done, we let the rest of the family down. That’s always in the back of your head.“

Also in the back of their heads, they knew that few family businesses survive the second generation. By the third and fourth generations, they’re on borrowed time, especially in an industry that has been turned on its head.

”I think it’s hardest to know that we’re not going out on our terms,“ said Serur Dawahare, 44, one of youngest of the third generation. He has spent a lot of time recently writing recommendation letters for employees seeking new jobs and scanning the newspaper for opportunities that might be good for them.

Dawahare’s ownership was divided among 39 family shareholders, most of whom didn’t work in the company. The stock never paid dividends. But now it’s gone.

”The family has been great,“ Richard said. ”They haven’t blamed those of us working here. If I were in their shoes, I might be tempted to.“

”We have a good family,“ Harding said softly.

Then Richard turned philosophical: ”It’s tempting to visualize my late father and grandparents and uncles and aunts in heaven, looking down and wondering …. It’s too easy to be negative and say they would be so ashamed. But I do not feel that way! I know that in their hearts they know we did what we could to make it work.“

Harding shifted the conversation back to earthly matters.

”I would thank every employee who ever worked for us, every customer who ever shopped with us, every family member who put their heart and soul into this thing,“ he said. ”We had a good run.“

Nothing makes you feel old like watching a time capsule being opened – and remembering the day it was sealed.

I was 7 years old on that Sunday – Jan. 9, 1966 – and Southern Hills Methodist Church was dedicating its new sanctuary on Harrodsburg Road at what was then the edge of town.

We all gathered near the main door and watched as a copper box was cemented behind a cornerstone engraved ”1965.“ (Construction always takes longer than planned.) My parents told me the box was a ”time capsule“ that would be opened someday in the future, and people would look at the things inside and see who we were.

A few years earlier, as a wave of growth and development swept across the farmland south of Lexington, Methodist leaders decided they needed a church there. Southern Hills was started in 1959 by a few dozen families, including mine, and a dynamic young minister, Don Herren.

The congregation met in the old Picadome School until a church building was ready two years later. A little more than a year after the futuristic-looking sanctuary was completed, Southern Hills had more than 1,000 members.

Last Sunday, Southern Hills United Methodist Church began a yearlong celebration of its 50th anniversary. I don’t get back there very often. During the 22 years I was away from Lexington, I became active in another denomination.

When I arrived for the celebration service, I didn’t know the time capsule would be opened. All my parents had said was that the Tuttle family was barbecuing chicken for a dinner afterward. That’s all they needed to say.

Monthly potluck dinners were a staple at Southern Hills. But the serious food was reserved for one Sunday each summer when John Tuttle and the men of the church barbecued hundreds and hundreds of chickens and served them with baked beans and cole slaw. The sermon always seemed to go faster that day as the smoky aroma drifted in through the air-conditioning vents.

Tuttle was a poultry specialist at the University of Kentucky’s College of Agriculture, and he was always looking for ways to promote chicken. Like Colonel Sanders, he developed his own special blend of herbs and spices. He died years ago, but his children still have a company make up the sauce mix in bulk. Every few years, my father and I buy a five-pound bag.

Tuttle’s son and two daughters, dressed in special aprons embroidered for the occasion, were cooking away outside when I found a pew with my parents and read in the bulletin that the time capsule would be opened.

With help from Wiley Finney, a charter member well into his 90s, the Rev. Bill Moore carefully removed the box’s contents for everyone to see. There was a membership roster, other church documents and a photo of the sanctuary’s groundbreaking ceremony in 1964. Finney remarked that one man in the picture had died the previous week.

Herren, who served three terms as a Fayette County school board member and chairman, died in 2004. His wife, Pat, a music professor who always sang in the choir, was honored with a bouquet of roses.

The capsule held a complete copy of the Lexington Herald of Jan. 7, 1966, and several clippings of Herald and Leader stories and photos marking early milestones in the church’s life. I’ve always found it interesting that the simplest things we put in the newspaper will be clipped, saved and cherished.

It was fun seeing the time capsule opened. But as I looked around the sanctuary, the whole place seemed like a time capsule, reflecting both my life and the transformation of Lexington over the past half-century.

Seated in the pews were several of my old friends and their children, and many more of their parents – my old Sunday school teachers and Boy Scout leaders. So many familiar faces. In my mind’s eye, I still see many of them as the young UK professors, IBM engineers, lawyers, doctors, merchants, builders, teachers and salesmen whose labors and dreams would help make Lexington the city it has become.

It is moments like that when you realize a church is more than a building or a place to worship. It is a community built on faith, fellowship, dreams – and, if you’re lucky, great barbecued chicken.

It helped to be Chinese. It helped even more to have a friend who is an earthquake damage inspector for the Chinese government.

As the two men traveled through central China for 10 days last month, Zhenming Wang, who heads the ­Kentucky Geological Survey’s ­Geological Hazards Section at the University of Kentucky, tried to blend in and let his friend do the talking.

As a result, Wang got a rare ­insider’s look at the devastation wrought by the magnitude 8.0 earthquake that struck China on May 12, killing nearly 70,000 people and displacing tens of thousands more.

Wang also was able to gather ­valuable data to help Western ­Kentucky prepare for an inevitable repeat of similar quakes that hit along the New Madrid Fault near the Mississippi River in 1811 and 1812. The good news: It might not be as bad as we’ve always thought.

Photos Wang took during his trip vividly show the destruction in China: A collapsed bridge span. A new luxury hotel so cracked it must now be torn down. Schools reduced to rubble. A family eating lunch in the ruins of their home, which no longer has a roof or walls. A huge boulder that rolled off a mountain, crushing a car on the road below. Along the fault line, rows of corn are rearranged and a waterfall has appeared in a river.

Still, the ground-shaking that occurred for perhaps two minutes during the quake wasn’t as severe as Wang expected.

Some buildings were destroyed, but others next to them were hardly damaged. That was especially true near the fault line, where structures on one side were often more damaged than on the other.

In some cases, damaged or ­destroyed buildings were not ­properly designed to withstand as much ground-shaking as they received. In many more cases, though, the ­damage was the result of shoddy construction, he said.

That was often true in schools, which is why so many of the dead were children crushed in their classrooms. Wang has one photo of a bulletin board in a destroyed school’s main hall. It is filled with students’ portraits. “I don’t know how many of them survived,” he said. “It was very, very sad.”

Wang said he talked with a woman whose young son had died when his school collapsed, and now she faced having to demolish her recently built but damaged home. The boy’s friend lived nearby; he escaped because he was able to run quickly out of the school when the quake began.

“Everywhere I went, if they put just a little design and construction attention to it, it was fine,” said Wang, who is from southeast China, far from the earthquake zone. “If people had just spent a little more money. Economically, they could have afforded to do it. This was both a natural and a man-made disaster.”

While China did too little to prepare for this earthquake, Western Kentucky might have done too much. Wang said his research ­estimates that ground-shaking around Paducah during a worst-case New Madrid quake would likely be only half as strong as previous estimates.

“Previously, in Paducah, builders had to do more than in San Francisco and L.A., and that just didn’t make sense,” he said. “I can now see several federal agencies revising certain things.”

Wang said there are ­differences in geology between China and Western Kentucky and Tennessee, and many more differences in ­topography. For example, many people in China died in huge landslides. “We certainly wouldn’t have this landslide issue, because our land is flat,” he said.

But there is danger from so-called “liquefaction,” where the ground basically turns to soup and ­buildings sink. That’s of special ­concern in Memphis.

Based on his research, and other new science, Wang thinks some building codes for bridges and public ­buildings in Western ­Kentucky could be further eased, which would save money and help the area’s battered economy. Residential building codes already have been revised in recent years.

“Clearly, the estimate for ground motion in Paducah is too high,” Wang said. “The methodology they used is flawed. It was based on what we knew in the 1960s and 1970s. We know more now than then.”

Wang said he hopes his research will be useful in finding the right balance in earthquake construction standards – protecting public safety without unnecessarily driving up costs.

“My job is to look at the science, and let the policy-makers make those ­decisions,” he said.

Lexington in July could be a boring place for a kid in the 1960s — except during the Lions Bluegrass Fair.

I always looked forward to the fair. There were rides with all the thrills that gravity, motion and speed could produce.

State Troopers in crisp uniforms manned an elaborate miniature village with little electric cars for kids to drive. Obey all the traffic rules and you went home with a Junior Trooper badge.

My brothers and I went home with a lot more, too: Super balls, stuffed animals, squirt guns and a bag of trinkets from Lexington businesses. We always hoped the souvenir yardsticks would be gone by the time we got there; otherwise, they would eventually become our parents’ disciplinary tool of last resort. I’m sure at least one Perry Lumber Co. yardstick met its end by breaking across mine.

There’s something magical about colored lights from a spinning Ferris wheel and laughter from a midway. I didn’t understand it at the time, but the whole reason for the Lions Bluegrass Fair was to help kids less fortunate than me — kids who couldn’t see those lights or hear that laughter.

The fair began its annual run Thursday at Masterson Station Park. The Lexington Lions Club is proud that, in addition to becoming a fixture of Bluegrass life, the fair has raised more than $1.4 million to support its charitable work.

The Lions Club was the brainchild of Melvin Jones, a Chicago businessman who thought community service was as important as making money. He started the first club in 1917. The organization has since grown to 1.3 million members in 202 countries.

The Lexington Lions Club was started in 1921, four years before Helen Keller spoke to the organization’s national convention and inspired its mission. She urged Lions to become ”knights of the blind in the crusade against darkness.“

Since then, much Lions Club work has focused on helping people — especially poor people and children — who have sight or hearing problems or suffer from diabetes. A key effort is stopping preventable blindness.

The Lexington Lions provide more than 800 pair of new eyeglasses each year to people in Fayette County, and they collect more than 6,000 used eyeglass frames for reuse. The club conducts more than 100 eye exams and pays for several eye surgeries, usually to remove cataracts. It pays for more than 50 hearing aids and sponsors camps and day programs for blind, deaf and diabetic children.

”We are often the resource of last resort,“ said club president Bill Moody, a retired University of Kentucky professor. ”We’ve helped many people correct vision and hearing problems, enabling them to get jobs and become taxpayers.“

Last year, the Lexington Lions’ work was funded by $100,000 in Bluegrass Fair proceeds and $40,000 in earnings from a $1 million endowment fund made possible by the fair.

The Lions Club had several early fund-raisers – including a turtle derby and a radio auction – before it started the Bluegrass Fair in 1961, according to longtime club secretary Sue Alexander. That first fair at The Red Mile cleared $800.

Some early fairs netted the club as much as $61,000. Others lost as much as $58,000. A lot depended on the weather and other forces the Lions couldn’t control.

For instance, one evening in July 1969 the fair was all but deserted. Lexingtonians were at home, glued to their television sets, watching Neil Armstrong become the first man to walk on the moon.

The fair moved to Masterson Station Park in 1976, and the Lions Club contracted with professional management in 1996. Since then, the event has been far more successful.

Club members sell tickets, manage parking and do a thousand other chores needed to accommodate the more than 75,000 visitors who will attend the fair before it closes July 20.

”We have a great group of volunteers; some are out here every night,“ said Ron Mossotti, a club member now in his 12th year as fair manager. ”I grew up a mile from the New York State Fair, and I used to sneak under the fence and go every day. So my thing is running the fair.“

On Wednesday evening, club members turned out in their gold satin vests with purple trim for a cookout to dedicate the first permanent building on the fairgrounds. The 66-by-100-foot building with a large shelter at one end will house exhibits and events during the fair – as well as provide facilities for the Lions to give free vision and hearing screenings.

The club paid for the building and gave it to the city, which owns the park, including the 24-acre fairgrounds that the club maintains. The city will rent out the building other times of the year, splitting proceeds with the Lions Club.

That building, plus another new structure paid for by the city and several agriculture groups, will allow the Bluegrass Fair to restore the livestock- and produce-judging events that stopped when the fair left The Red Mile three decades ago.

So come out to the Lions Bluegrass Fair. If livestock judging isn’t your thing, maybe you’ll like the rides, the carnival games, the horse and dog shows or the beauty pageants.

Admission is only $5, and children 6 and younger get in free. Parking is free, too, as are the magical lights of the Ferris wheel, the laughter of the midway and the satisfaction of knowing you are helping the Lions Club help people less fortunate than you.

Vice Mayor Jim Gray, whose day job is running a big construction company, says he learned a long time ago that development projects ”are a lot more about process than project.“

Two of Lexington’s biggest development projects came up Tuesday during the Urban County Council’s last work session and meeting before the summer break. What was striking was the radically different approaches the two projects’ developers have taken to ”process.“

One project is CentrePointe, Dudley Webb’s proposed 35-story luxury hotel, condo and retail tower that would occupy a block in the center of Lexington. The other is the proposed Lexington Distillery District on a blighted section of Manchester Street between Rupp Arena and the Newtown Pike Extension.

Conceived privately and announced March 4 after closed-door discussions with the Downtown Development Authority and the mayor’s office, CentrePointe has faced broad community opposition and suspicion.

Young people are upset that popular music and entertainment venues such as the Dame were evicted from the block. Preservationists want some elements of the block’s historic buildings incorporated into the new structure, as has been done in many other cities, rather than being bulldozed.

Citizens and urban planners complain that the design Webb unveiled is too massive for the site and doesn’t follow the city’s Downtown Master Plan. Architects think CentrePointe’s design is uninspired, at best. The soon-to-be-displaced Farmers Market wants a new home.

Stung by the opposition, Webb responded by making a few changes to his plan. But he insists on clearing the block and starting fresh. And he says it’s too late to consider alternative suggestions from architects, preservationists or citizens.

Webb’s approach to ”process“ prompted the Fayette Alliance on Tuesday to withdraw support for CentrePointe. The Alliance had conditionally supported the project when it was announced, saying urban infill is important to preserving farmland, its main goal.

In a sharply worded rebuke, the Alliance criticized CentrePointe’s developer for failing to involve the public or address community concerns. The Alliance urged city government and Webb to ”establish a transparent and structured public participation process to meaningfully address“ those concerns.

In stark contrast to Webb’s style is the approach being taken by Barry McNees, Brooke Asbell and their partners in the proposed Lexington Distillery District. It would create a mixed-use neighborhood of restaurants, clubs, stores, loft homes, pedestrian areas and perhaps a farmer’s market or even a small showcase distillery along Manchester Street.

A century ago, the neighborhood housed three of Kentucky’s biggest bourbon distilleries, the last of which shut down a generation ago. Many of the old distillery buildings remain, and there is lots of vacant space for new development.

In a presentation to the council Tuesday, Asbell said his group wants to reuse the old buildings rather than bulldoze them, to create a unique area that will bring people downtown and pay homage to Lexington’s history and culture. The developers are working to integrate their plans with other nearby projects such as the Town Branch Trail and the Newtown Pike Extension’s signature bridge.

Like CenterPointe, planning for the Distillery District began more than two years ago.

During that time, the Distillery District’s developers have held several workshops to gather design ideas from professional and student architects and have met frequently with local leaders, surrounding neighborhoods, arts groups and other interested parties. Open community forums will be scheduled soon, after studies help firm up more project details, Asbell said.

Tax-increment financing, known as TIF, will be needed to make the project economically feasible, Asbell told council members. That’s because the developers can’t cover the cost of such things as putting utilities underground and building pedestrian areas.

Kentucky’s TIF law allows local governments to partner with developers to pay for such improvements with a share of future taxes that will be generated by the project.

When CentrePointe was announced, Webb said he wanted a TIF partnership to pay for underground parking and other public improvements. Then, faced with opposition, he said he could do the project without TIF financing. Since then, though, he’s indicated he does want TIF.

Stung by their own exclusion from the CentrePointe ”process,“ council members voted Tuesday to have seven of their members meet with Webb and any other developers seeking TIF financing to negotiate terms of any deal openly and with respect to Lexington’s ”history and heritage.“

After the council briefing, Asbell described the Distillery District developers’ philosophy this way: ”It’s not going to work without the support of everybody. Our approach is to say, “Here’s what we’re planning, and we want to work with you.’“

That’s a lot better than the CentrePointe approach: We know best. We don’t care what you think. Here’s the deal; do you want in or not?

Bill Bishop, the former Herald-Leader editorial columnist who now lives in Texas, is coming back to Lexington next Monday (July 14) for a 7 p.m. book signing at Joseph-Beth Booksellers.

His new book — The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America Is Tearing Us Apart — is getting a lot of national attention. It has been reviewed in The New York Times and The Economist. I reviewed it in the Herald-Leader.

But perhaps the biggest plug for The Big Sort came unsolicited from former President Bill Clinton, speaking at the recent Aspen Ideas Festival. Click here to see a short video of Clinton discussing the book and talking about why he thinks we need more bipartisanship and optimism as we face up to the problems of the future.

What’s a catfish worth? The one Dale Flener just caught earned him $50,000.

For 28 years, the Morgantown Butler County Chamber of Commerce has sponsored the Green River Catfish Festival over the Independence Day weekend. After all, the western Kentucky town calls itself the Catfish Capital of the World.

The festival includes an antique tractor show, a livestock show, carnival rides and a “star search” contest. But the main event is a fishing tournament where people try to catch one of the tagged-and-numbered catfish sponsored by local businesses and released into the Green River before the festival.

People who catch one of 55 tagged fish during the three-day tournament earn prizes of between $100 and $1,000. Nineteen of those were caught this year; all were worth $100, except for one that paid $250.

There also is one grand prize fish. The last time anyone caught it, back in 1992, it was worth $10,000. In more recent years, it has been worth $50,000. But nobody caught it. Until last Thursday evening.

That’s when Flener, who has fished in the contest for all of its 28 years but never caught a tagged fish, hooked into the biggest payday of his life.

“I was born and raised here, and I’ve been fishing Green River all my life,” said Flener, 67, who lives in the Butler County community of Aberdeen and retired after 37 years of working at the Holley Carburetor plant in nearby Bowling Green.

The $50,000 prize money came from an insurance policy that local businesses and the chamber paid $5,000 for, said Amanda Hatcher, the chamber’s executive director.

When reached on his cell phone Monday morning, Flener was at the insurance agent’s office filling out papers to collect his winnings. He still seemed a little stunned, as he was Saturday evening when the nearly 500 competing fishermen gathered at Charles Black City Park to find out which tagged fish had earned which prizes.

What does Flener plan to do with his winnings? He hasn’t figured that out yet.

“My wife has a whole lot to say about that,” Flener said. One thing he’s thinking about: A trip to Disney World with his granddaughters, who are 5, 9 and 21.

And what will he do with the pound-and-a-half catfish that brought him Butler County fame and fortune? “I’m going to mount it if I can,” he said.

Photo: Dale Flener, in red-striped shirt, reacts to the announcement of his $50,000 win. Listen to the scene by clicking the arrow below. Photo and audio provided by Morgantown Butler County Chamber of Commerce.  Thanks to Butler County native Sherri Phelps for the tip.

Click here to listen to a short audio clip of Flener being announced as the winner.

I posted an item Thursday that reproduced a brief story from the July 6, 1826, edition of the Kentucky Whig about how Lexington celebrated the 50th anniversary of Independence Day. It mentioned two downtown establishments — Sanders’ Garden and Mr. Connetts — where Lexington residents partied that day.  I have no idea where they were or what they looked like.  After all, there’s not much left of Lexington from 182 years ago.

It’s worth noting, though, that 1826 was the year Morton’s Row was built.  It was the store of William “Lord” Morton, an early Lexington entrepreneur.  Since 1929, the building has been Joe Rosenberg’s jewelry store and pawn shop.  Any day now, it could be a pile of dust. Joe Rosenberg and Dudley Webb have permits to demolish the building to make way for CentrePointe, their $250 million luxury hotel, condo and retail development.

In an unsuccessful attempt to appease critics of the project, Webb proposed incorporating the pediment facade from the main Morton’s Row building into CentrePointe.  No word on whether that proposal still stands, now that a demolition permit has been issued.  Let’s hope the facade is preserved. Once our historical legacy is gone, it’s gone for good.

A demolition permit has been issued for Morton’s Row, built in 1826, to make way for the CentrePointe development. Since 1929, the buildilng has been owned by the Rosenberg family.  Photo/Tom Eblen

Lexingtonians hold this truth to be self-evident: There’s no better day to be downtown with family and friends than the Fourth of July.

From the starting gun of the Bluegrass 10,000 until the last flicker of fireworks over Rupp Arena, it’s our own special celebration of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

It must be something in the community DNA. After all, Lexington was founded in June 1775, a year before American independence was formally declared. But those patriotic pioneers named their new town for Lexington, Mass., because they had just gotten word of the battle there that began the revolution against Britain.

This Independence Day began with light rain falling on the 3,632 registered entrants in the 32nd annual Bluegrass 10,000 as they lined up along Main Street waiting for the race to start. It was wet, but at least it was cool.

Some came to test their athleticism; others to socialize. Still others just seemed to enjoy an excuse to play in the rain. It was an eclectic bunch: doctors, lawyers, teachers, plumbers, politicians and salesmen. I also saw a Navy captain and a dance choreographer.

Jacob Korir, the Eastern Kentucky University track star and potential Olympian, won the race for the second-straight year.

But Korir probably didn’t have as much fun as Lin West, who crossed the finish line more than an hour later, hand-in-hand with his 5 ½ -year-old daughter, Callie.

”Last year, she rode in a stroller,“ West said. ”But this year, we finished.“

As the race and showers ended, people poured onto Vine Street. There they found all manner of food, from pulled pork to Greek spinach pie, and booths advocating causes and selling arts and crafts. On one corner, six members of the Bluegrass Dulcimer Club strummed away, while across the street the Dream Interpretation tent did a brisk business.

Cloudy skies kept temperatures in the mid-70s. A little less humidity and it would have been perfect.

The afternoon parade down Vine and Main streets was diversity in motion — and more than a little corny.

The governor and mayor rode in horse-drawn carriages; other elected officials and office-seekers rode in automobiles. Every club and activist group seemed to be represented, from the Sierra Club to Friends of Coal. Companies touted their wares and churches spread the Gospel. Ramsey’s Diner had my favorite gimmick: The workers on its float handed out ears of sweet corn.

As the parade broke up, people began moving to Rupp Arena’s Cox Street lot for Red, White and Boom, where Central Kentucky’s own John Michael Montgomery was to perform before a fireworks spectacular to put an exclamation point on the day.

A few blocks from all the hubbub, on Hampton Court, Joe Childers and Denise Smith had 100 or so friends over for their annual party.

”We moved into this house on July 3, 1996, and had our first party the next day,“ said Childers, a lawyer. ”A few friends brought bottles of Champagne, so we thought that would be a good thing to do every year.“

The highlight of the party is always a dramatic reading of the Declaration of Independence, which is reprinted on the Herald-Leader’s editorial page each July 4.

Noted Lexington author Ed McClanahan did the honors this year, carrying his folded newspaper to the first landing of the staircase in the old house’s expansive foyer. Everyone gathered around as Childers shushed noisy children upstairs.

”When in the course of human events …“ McClanahan began.

As he read aloud the Founding Fathers’ grievances against King George III and their determination to live and govern themselves as free men, all of the adults in the house stood quietly, Champagne glasses in hand. It was a time to reflect on that 232-year-old document that in many ways make us who we are.

”I’m really glad I was asked to read it,“ McClanahan said afterward. ”It made me really listen to the words. I didn’t know I liked it so much.“

Across Lexington, everyone said, ”Amen,“ whether they realized it or not.

Writer Ed McClanahan reads the Declaration of Independence, an annual tradition at the July 4th party given by Hampton Court residents Joe Childers and Denise Smith.   Photo/Tom Eblen

I’ll be at the patriotic concert tonight at Transylvania University and then back downtown bright and early tomorrow for other festivities celebrating America’s 232nd Independence Day. I hope to see you there.

There isn’t a better day to be in Lexington than the Fourth of July, from the starting gun of the Bluegrass 10,000 race to the last flicker of fireworks over Rupp Arena. Apparently, it has been that way for a long time.

I have a small collection of newspapers published in Lexington before the Civil War. Several years ago, when I bought a copy of the July 6, 1826, edition of the Kentucky Whig, I found this small but vivid account of Lexington’s celebration of the 50th Independence Day, two days earlier.

Those wet but happy Lexingtonians had no way of knowing it then, but elsewhere in America that day, two of the founding fathers died within hours of each other. John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, the second and third presidents, had over the years gone from being partners in liberty to bitter political enemies to frequent correspondents and grudging admirers of each other. On his death bed, Adams is supposed to have said, “Thomas Jefferson survives.”

We’ll never be the belle of the ball if everyone knows we’re easy.

That’s how I ended my first column about CentrePointe, soon after Dudley Webb unveiled plans for his $250 million luxury hotel, condo and retail complex.

I was likening Lexington to a debutante who fancies herself as someone special, yet rushes into the arms of any real estate developer with a hot proposition.

So here we are, nearly four months later. Where does the belle find herself?

She’s considering a shotgun marriage to the CentrePointe developer. Why? Because it could be an easy way to get some downtown goodies. Or maybe not.

When Webb announced CentrePointe in early March after two years of behind-the-scenes work, he said the financial plan included as much as $70 million in tax increment financing to pay for related “public” improvements. Those were described as such things as a parking garage under Phoenix Park and public art.

Kentucky’s tax increment financing program — known as TIF — is a great tool that allows a city and the developer of a “signature” project to work together to rehabilitate a blighted urban area. With TIF, some of the future taxes generated by the private project are used to pay for “public” improvements near the development.

Now, Webb says he doesn’t want any more public meddling in CentrePointe and he has enough private financing to build without TIF. But no TIF, no public improvements.

Webb’s attorney, Darby Turner, said the developer would only apply for TIF financing if the Urban County Council asks him to. The council will vote Thursday on whether to do that.

Council members were told for the first time Tuesday that representatives of Webb and Mayor Jim Newberry have discussed trying to use TIF money for a long list of downtown projects, including a much-needed renovation of the old courthouse. Also, Turner said that instead of $70 million, only $35 million or $40 million might really be available for public improvements.

So how would this all work? How much money could really be available to the city and what could it buy? Nobody seems to know.

In fact, Tuesday’s meeting was the first time council members had really ever discussed CentrePointe TIF. Several council members had some very basic questions about TIF, and the only knowledgeable person there to advise them was Webb’s consultant, John Farris.

Council members are being asked to make a quick decision with little information. Some of them are angry about it, and who can blame them?

“What this motion asks us to do is … ask if we could tag along with the CentrePointe project and maybe get some public amenities out of a deal that’s already done,” Councilman Tom Blues said. “What we see here is a failure of communication, of cooperation, of public involvement, of openness, and I’m disturbed that it has come to this, because it really indicates a significant civic failure.”

Councilman Don Blevins said more study is needed to see how CentrePointe fits with potential city redevelopment projects a couple of blocks down Main Street. Blevins noted that decisions the council is about to make could shape Lexington for a century or more and shouldn’t be rushed.

And he added: “It feels a little strange hitching our TIF wagon to a project some of us don’t like. My fear is that a large four-star hotel with huge condominums on top of it is going to fail. I hope I’m wrong. I hope they’re wildly successful and the downtown is vibrant and we sell all those condos and the hotel is full from here to eternity. But what if I’m right? What we’d have is essentially a vertical Lexington Mall right in the heart of downtown.”

Vice Mayor Jim Gray also questioned CentrePointe’s economic viability. And he wondered whether a CentrePointe TIF would even be legal because developers say it’s not essential to build their project.

Gray has been among the most outspoken critics of CentrePointe because of Webb’s refusal to allow public input on the project’s design — and Webb’s insistence on demolishing the block’s historic buildings rather than trying to incorporate some elements of them into the new building.

“I’ve learned over time that this business of building and developing is a whole lot more about process than about project,” said Gray, who is president of a large construction company.

On Tuesday, Gray read to his fellow council members from a “best practices” guide to Kentucky TIF projects. It recommended thorough study, public participation and community buy-in — none of which has happened with CentrePointe.

It might be too late for anyone but Dudley Webb to influence what happens on the CentrePointe block.

But the future of downtown shouldn’t rise or fall on one project, no matter now big it is. Council members should slow down, think things through and look at all of the options.

Two other TIF projects have been proposed for Lexington — an arena to replace Rupp and a large downtown entertainment district along Manchester Street. Given the redevelopment opportunities downtown, there could be the potential for several more big projects.

The best course of action might be to tell Webb to go ahead and build CentrePointe on his own.

City officials could then do what they should have done long ago: Engage the public in a discussion about what downtown Lexington needs and what it might get from a TIF partnership. Then the city could seek out a developer who is interested in a true partnership.

Blevins said it all: The decisions we are about to make will shape Lexington for a century or more and shouldn’t be rushed.

An intentional courtship would make a lot more sense than a shotgun marriage.

Dudley Webb now says he can build his CentrePointe tower without public money.

Maybe he should.

Originally, Webb wanted as much as $70 million in tax increment financing ­— known as TIF — to pay for ”public“ improvements related to the $250 million project. Those could include additional underground parking, a giant outside video screen and some public art.

Last week, after during a hearing in which a city panel gave Webb permission to tear down all of the old buildings on the block, he his attorney surprised everyone by saying he could do the project without TIF financing.

But if he did that, of course, the public amenities would be “scaled back.”

You get the idea.

“The community and the Urban County Council need to tell us, do they want us to go ahead with the TIF application?” Webb said.

The Urban County Council and a state board must approve any TIF financing for CentrePointe. The council could begin discussing it Tuesday.

Maybe council members should call Webb’s bluff and say, “Fine. Go ahead.”

CentrePointe has always seemed to be questionable as a TIF project.

The state TIF program allows a portion of future taxes generated by a new development to go toward paying for public improvements needed to make the development possible.

The idea is to help build “signature” projects that will spur economic activity around them.

Others have proposed TIF projects to replace Rupp Arena and create an entertainment district along Manchester Street. It’s easy to see how those projects could accomplish the goal.

CentrePointe, on the other hand, would house a luxury hotel, luxury condos, stores and restaurants.

When Webb spoke to the Bluegrass Hospitality Association recently, hoteliers expressed skepticism about the market for a new luxury hotel. Meanwhile, downtown is awash in unsold condos and vacant retail space.

Would CentrePointe create new economic activity downtown, or just compete for what’s already there?

Not to mention that Webb is trying to build CentrePointe during the worst construction and financing market in years. Aside from vague references to “international” money, Webb hasn’t disclosed his financing.

All of those factors should give local and state officials pause about putting public money into CentrePointe.

Plus, there’s this: Kentucky law requires officials to certify that a TIF project couldn’t be built without public assistance. Webb’s comments last week seem to undermine that idea.

So what if there is no TIF financing? The developer should still be required to provide adequate on-site parking and streetscape improvements.

Webb has resisted meaningful public participation into what would be one of the biggest, most high-profile developments in Lexington’s history.

When preservationists heard rumors of his plans two years ago and expressed concerns about some of the historic structures on the block, Webb listened politely — and ignored them. With help from some city officials, he kept his plans secret from the public until March, when they were unveiled as a done deal. While Webb has made some design improvements to respond to critics, they have been minor.

Given Webb’s lack of interest in public participation, it may not be a good idea to put public money at risk on CentrePointe.

If Webb does apply for TIF financing, the council should ask a lot of questions, and insist on some safeguards.

The first safeguard would be to prohibit demolition of the buildings now on the block, some of which date to 1826, until the TIF application is approved and other financing is secured and documented.

Remember the World Hole Center?

When the Phoenix Hotel block across Limestone Street from the CentrePointe block was cleared in 1981, future Gov. Wallace Wilkinson was promising to build a 50-story office tower he called the World Coal Center.

It never happened.

Instead, Lexington was left for several years with a big hole, dubbed the World Hole Center. Eventually, the public library, Park Plaza apartments and Phoenix Park were built to fill the void.

Here’s the best thing that could have happened with CentrePointe: Webb could have incorporated a few of the existing structures, or their facades, into a contemporary development that would be uniquely Lexington.

But here’s the worst that could happen: Webb could clear the block, his development plan could collapse and we could be left with another hole in the middle of town — and no historic fabric for a more creative developer to work with in the future.