DAYTON/BELLEVUE/NEWPORT/WILDER, KY
Jan. 28 2008
PART 2
As my bike tour of northern Campbell County continues, this is Locust Street in Bellevue. I was getting harassing phone calls from one of the houses pictured here. Word to the wise: I don't like idiots who have nothing better to do with their miserable lives than wake people up at 5 AM this way.
Bellevue's Donnermeyer Drive becomes Newport's 6th Street here. I'm standing on this road looking southeast on an icy creek near the city line. I never paid much attention to the creek until now, and apparently much of the stream is piped underground. The elevated road on the right is part of the hated I-471.
Now I'm in Newport going southeast on Wildcat Drive - which was the celebrated Incinerator Road. I think it's accurate to use the v-word for the elevated stretch of I-471 you see here. It's a vivvlyvoovler! Just joking! It's a...VIADUCT! In the early 2000s there was actually a miniature golf course on the lot under I-471 here!
Tenth Street in Newport, going northeast on the far east side of the city. Hey! What is that I see in the trash can up ahead? It's a...toilet seat!!!
Tenth Street carries KY 1120 here, and now we're almost back in Bellevue, where 10th becomes Memorial Parkway. You see the ramp to I-471 south branching off on the right. Of interest here is the foreground where you see a path a few feet long off 10th. I suspected that used to be the sidewalk for Waterworks Road, which beginned near here until the late 1970s. It's more likely though that it was the sidewalk of Grand Avenue and that Grand may have been moved slightly in the '70s.
Looking down the ramp to I-471 south. Waterworks Road ran about where the ramp is. On the right you see bulldozers carrying out the destruction that took hold when the city of Newport stole homes from residents to have the land turned over to a developer. The building on the horizon is St. Luke Hospital East - birthplace of yours truly. And also the source of harassing phone calls I was getting.
Southeast on Lowell Street in Newport. Tenth Street is on the left. I couldn't believe I never noticed the large, brown building at 10th & Lowell before. It was probably a 19th century mill, and it's even more surprising that it was still standing in 2008! Right behind the stop sign straight ahead, the rail line that runs down Lowell begins. Beyond that you see Lowell going under the 11th Street bridge that goes to Covington.
Probably the only SPEED LIMIT 3 sign I've ever seen (except a similarly sloppy one just past this). It's on a driveway to a junkyard right where it comes off KY 9 near the border between Newport and Wilder. You can tell it used to be a SPEED LIMIT 20 sign and has a faded SCHOOL banner - even though there's no pseudo-educational institution anywhere in sight.
This is blurry because I was trembling on the extremely narrow sidewalk on the west side of the KY 9 viaduct over the rail line between Wilder and Newport. KY 9 here is of course Licking Pike, and we're looking north as it goes under the rail line that crosses a bridge to near 15th in Covington. Can you spot the Big Mac bridge? You can barely see the I-471 span to Cincinnati behind the trees.
Man, this would have ruled! But I assumed these 3 giant blocks were an Allowed Cloud that barred continuing on this road. This is at the top of Queen City Avenue in Wilder facing towards the steel mill.
North on KY 9 from the top of Queen City Avenue. The building on the right side of KY 9 was the Finkelman's warehouse. (The Finkelman's logo was still very clear in the early 1980s.)
Going down Steel Plant Road in Wilder. This was neat!
Sines, sines, sines! This is near the center of Wilder. We're looking south on KY 9 from the junction with Moock Road.
This is a pier for an abandoned bridge discussed later. To find this, I had to go way down a rutted, muddy trail through the woods at the end of Andrews Way in Wilder. This secluded area featured the sound of birds chirping!
This is the little-known rusted rail bridge over the Licking River that comes out in the Latonia section of Covington. I saw the other side of this span earlier in the month, remember?
This was the greatest treat all day! Just south of the rusty bridge in the previous photo is this abandoned span - which once used the pier pictured earlier. This is Northern Kentucky's version of the secret bridge - although this span is not usable at all. The approaches are gone, and there's nothing left but an empty framework on 2 piers. I assume it was for rail. I had no idea this bridge even existed until after my Latonia outing.
Brrrrring! KY 9! From the entrance to something called Frederick's Landing, this is looking north on KY 9 towards the middle of Wilder. The first road on the right is now part of Johns Hill Road. Most of the northernmost half-mile of the current Johns Hill Road is the old path of KY 9.
From Frederick's Landing, this is the abandoned bridge over the Licking River, with the still-used rail bridge behind it.
This is KY 9 from the Frederick's Landing entrance. The massive blast in this hill was made in the 1990s or so for the current KY 9 routing that you see.
Last but not least, this is Overlook Drive as seen from KY 9. This road is in horrible condition and curves up that hill to the south side of Newport. It's in such bad shape that a family member refuses to drive on it. Some folks just don't know what they're missing! The street going left with the green gate used to be part of 13th.