Living in Downtown Jeffersonville, Indiana

Small Town Charm, Big City Convenience

By Trisha Tull, Spring 2006

Three years ago we moved from Crescent Hill in Louisville and renovated a 1912 Foursquare Colonial with bay windows, spacious rooms, egg-and-dart woodwork, pocket doors, and an enormous front porch in the national historic district of downtown Jeffersonville, Indiana. Jeffersonville’s hidden treasures amazed me: the Ohio River with its unique neighborhood of houseboats, waterfowl, river architecture, and foot traffic; sunrise and sunset, moonrise and moonset on the river; the massive barges, the sailboats, the pink and purple sky silhouetting Jeffersonville's three bridges.

Where else could we sit on our front porch on a summer evening and hear the Belle of Louisville's calliope, the bells of the Catholic and Presbyterian churches, and ragtime music from the Warder Park gazebo? From where else could we walk to find, in a single trip, heirloom tomatoes from the Farmer's Market, Modjeskas from Schimpf's Confectionary, skinny lattes from Perkfection, luau decorations from Horner Novelty, yard bags and tools from Heuser Hardware, flowers, wine, library books, postage stamps, office supplies, full-service banking, dry-cleaning, city and county government offices, a little yarn, a pedicure, a few gifts, a few groceries, an antique chair, several friends and several stories? From where else could we leave our kitchen table and fall just a little breathless fifteen minutes later into our seats at Actor's Theatre? Or walk out the back door at Thunder's first explosion, watch the whole fireworks show, and be back on our porch in pajamas before most spectators have found their cars?

We love to walk to the Farmer's Market on Tuesdays and Saturdays. The sellers set up under the shade trees on the grounds of Preservation Station, a restored 1929 Pennsylvania Railway depot. They sell vegetables familiar and novel, and peaches, apples, berries, walnuts, garlic, hanging baskets, pumpkins, hummus, honey, preserves, and farm fresh eggs. We catch up there with news and neighbors. Often a local chef fills the air with wholesome aromas.

On Sunday afternoons we stroll the river with our beagle. Sometimes we walk only a block to the Memory Bricks, greet the picnickers, and admire the cottonwood trees and the stately Riverside Drive houses. Other days we walk west, past the Overlook and Riverstage, past the fishermen, the ducks, and the guy who carries his dining room chair to the river to visit them, past the vintage houses, the riverboat wharf, the bustling restaurants, the floodwall murals, the bridges, the Colgate clock, to the Falls of the Ohio.

On warm evenings we love to drink wine on the Rocky's river deck and watch the sunlight fade as the violet lights of the Second Street Bridge, with the Louisville skyline behind it, take over the sky. Walking home one evening, we watched a beaver swim along the shore from the Overlook up to Jeffboat. Other times we have seen blue heron. Once a Canada goose wandered to our yard and we walked it back to the river. A turtle lives in our hostas and appears whenever it chooses.

Our neighborhood in historic downtown Jeffersonville is filled with small town miscellany— professionals live by wage-earners; renters live by owners. The neighbor who keeps his motorcycle inside lives next to the friend who has made yard-art of his exercise bike, who lives next to the mechanic who keeps everyone's Hondas running, who lives across the street from the photographers who have made an outdoor studio of the whole neighborhood. The houses likewise are all individuals: Our three-story Colonial huddles between two taller, grander Victorians. Across the street, an ancient duplex stands between a bungalow and a cottage; around the corner sits a camelback, a Craftsman bungalow, another American four-square, a Queen Anne, a Tudor, an Italianate, and a magnificent prairie-style apartment building.

Architectural indifference is unfortunately not difficult to find even in the historic district. Strip mall sprawl on the city’s eastern edge likewise threatens our community’s beauty. But many—small business owners, the Jeffersonville Main Street program, residents, and the city government are pitching in to reclaim our community heritage in Jeffersonville’s town center. Reusing landmark buildings, sprucing up historic storefronts, infilling with architecturally compatible houses, learning about smart growth — all these are piece by piece restoring Jeffersonville's historic character.

A Midwestern town not a mile from the south, the first stop north of Kentucky at exit "zero," Jeffersonville is a small Indiana town nestled closer to Louisville's heart than most of the city itself is. It is tempting to keep historic downtown Jeffersonville a secret, but frankly it is a secret too wonderful to keep.

Trisha Tull is a board member of Jeffersonville Main Street Inc. (www.Jeffmainstreet.org) a nonprofit group working to revitalize downtown Jeffersonville through economic development, smart growth, and historic preservation.