8. O How The Mighty Have Fallen

A touch of dignity was today restored to Jefferson Square, the public space occupying the southwestern 1/4 block opposite the old Jefferson County Court House, or Metro Hall as it is known to the Mayor of Louisville-Jefferson County Metro and his acolytes. The building the mayor calls Metro Hall was the fifth building to house the judicial branch of government in Jefferson County. There have since been two more buildings erected to serve this purpose, the Louis D. Brandeis Hall of Justice, located diagonally southwest of the old Court House at 6th and Jefferson streets and built in the 1970s; and the newer Jefferson Judicial Center ("Judicial Center" being the new name for most of Kentucky's newest court houses) located west of the Brandeis Hall of Justice at 7th and Jefferson streets, built (as I remember) in the 1990s. If one's vista is to the south of the old Court House, as mine became due to change in offices yesterday, the park known as Jefferson Square offers a green space of land in the midst of the asphalt along Sixth and Jefferson streets and the concrete rising in the form of these seats of justice, as well as the multi-storied PNC Tower to the east.

Jefferson Square serves as the proverbial "public square" for Jefferson County. In it speeches have been made, bands have performed, and ceremonies held, including the very solemn community memorial service held after the events of September 11, 2001, as well as an immigration rally in support of Louisville's immigrant population last May 1st put on in part by KCCIR. I attended both events and have many others. Jefferson Square is truly a People's Park - you Berkeley alums of a particular age will understand my meaning.

Unlike several other Kentucky counties, our court house was not built in a center-of-town public square, complete with a British-like turnabout circus, but rather was built in the middle of the block (actually taking up 1/2 of the entire block). Oddly, while the center square is somewhat popular in our Commonwealth, of the counties abutting Jefferson, only Hardin's old courthouse is of this type. Oldham, Shelby, Spencer, and Bullitt, like Jefferson, each have court houses facing on a main street. (In Jefferson that main street is called Jefferson. In Oldham, Shelby, and Spencer, it is called Main Street, although Oldham's Fiscal Court Building is on a Jefferson. Bullitt opts for Buckman, while Hardin preserves history in Dixie Avenue). Incidentally, Hardin's new "Judicial Center," built a block south of the old one, looks like a chopped-off version of Jefferson's. Perhaps they were designed by the same person, but whoever she or he might be, I doubt they will attain the architechtural significance of a Gideon Shryock. But, I digress.

Back in November, a large task was undertaken in this county, as well as a county to the northwest, on the Right Bank of the Ohio, which made it an interstate, or national, affair. It seems a grand and noble christmas-type tree had grown far too close to a house for the comfort of its residents. The residents sought a way to rid themselves of this problem, and like many people do when faced with a problem, turned their minds and voices to the government. Lo and behold, the government of Louisville-Jefferson County Metro was in need of a christmas-type tree for its public square's winter display. How the two met up has never been fully explained.

You may know the story. The tree was felled from its location in Floyds Knobs, Indiana, and carried by a military transport helicopter belonging to Uncle Sam (the free ride for the tree being deemed a training exercise for our soldiers), from the Right Bank of the Ohio to the Left, where it was unceremoniously dropped on the Great Lawn. From there it was hauled to Jefferson Square, where once erected, it fell the next night. Re-erected, it remained in place serving as our christmas-type tree throughout the holidays.

As both a liberal and a Christian, I have divided passions as to the use of public money in the celebration of the birth of Jesus, especially in the public square. But I understand winter celebrations and wholly approve of them. I can individually choose to celebrate the Birth of the Savior, but my governments should, as people have for many ages, celebrate the end of the shortening of the days as marked by the Winter Solstice. That other religions and cultures have taken this very natural event and adapted for their personal uses bothers me not in the least. Pagans (and the rest of us) have the solstice, Jews have Hanukah, Christians have both Christmas and Epiphany, and most everyone celebrates January 1st as the New Year, thanks to the Romans of the 2nd century of the common era, the erstwhile "AD." Part of our winter celebration here on the Left Bank of the Ohio centered on this enormous tree, delivered from the air, as if Santa and his reindeer had overflown our little burg, granting us a tree for our festivities.

On the decision to decorate the tree, it was decked out in 40,000 lights of alternating columns of red, white, and blue, and crowned atop with nothing less than Old Glory herself. Personally, I found it atrocious. My mother, bless her, thought it was beautiful, as I am sure others did. To be sure, the hundreds of thousands of lights decorating other trees, shrubs, light posts, and anything else, made for a pretty sight. Louisville in winter, especially at night, is a beautiful place. [It would be even prettier if we had some snow through which the lights could twinkle, but that has been covered elsewhere, in that we haven't]. However, forty thousand red, white, and blue lights running vertically up and down a 50 foot tree do not make a sight to behold, at least not in a positive light, pun intended.

All that majesty came to an abrupt end today. The United States flag was properly and ceremoniously lowered. Then, limb by limb, the tree was unceremoniously dismembered. All that was left was a barren trunk, which was itself then divided into sections. The entirety of the former arboreal work was thrown into a waiting Parks Department truck and hauled away. Crews have swept the pine needles away, and the square is once again a place of beauty, peace, and green-ness, as opposed to a light show of red-ness, white-ness, and blue-ness.

Incidentally, the chipped and chopped-up needles and branches of this year's Patriot Tree will be mulched and used as bedding for some of the animals in the Louisville Zoo. While it may not be the most glorious end to the tree, it is a very good use. I hope the animals enjoy the tree more than I did.