Louisville Audio Walking Tour

Highlights

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  Muhammad Ali Center

  Dedicated to boxer Muhammad Ali, a native of Louisville, the Muhammad Ali Center rises six stories in the West Main District, founded by Ali and his wife Lonnie in 2005. Ali, a native of Louisville, and his wife Lonnie Ali founded the museum in 2005; it opened here on November 19, 2005, at a cost of $80 million.

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  Big Four Bridge

  Six steel truss spans carry the Big Four Bridge across the Ohio River from Louisville, Kentucky, to Jeffersonville, Indiana. Completed in 1895 and rebuilt in 1929, this structure once carried a single railway track for the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis Railway, the “Big Four Railroad” that gives the bridge its name.

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  Louisville Slugger Museum & Factory

  Louisville Slugger bats have their own museum and factory here on Museum Row, in the West Main District of downtown Louisville, Kentucky. Step closer: this place showcases the story of Louisville Slugger baseball bats in baseball and in American history, and it stages ever-changing pop culture exhibits.

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  Galt House

  Picture two earlier hotels named Galt House, raised in 1835 and 1869, whose name this 1972 tower carries on in Louisville, Kentucky. Its name reaches back to two consecutive nearby historic hotels, both called the Galt House, erected in 1835 and 1869; the first was destroyed by fire in 1865 and the second was demolished in 1921.

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  AEGON Center

  Reinforced concrete carries the 35-story tower you see at 400 West Market in Downtown Louisville. At 549 feet (167 m) it was Kentucky’s tallest building when it was built for $100 million in 1991, and it remains the tallest in the Commonwealth of Kentucky.

All 27 stops

• Belle of Louisville (Riverfront Plaza/Belvedere)

  Picture the steamboat once named Idlewild, built in Pittsburgh in 1914, now moored at Louisville, Kentucky's downtown wharf as the Belle of Louisville.

• Louisville Waterfront Park (Downtown Louisville)

  Picture scrap yards and abandoned industrial buildings, the wasteland this 85-acre park reclaimed beside the Ohio River.

• Galt House (Downtown Louisville)

  Picture two earlier hotels named Galt House, raised in 1835 and 1869, whose name this 1972 tower carries on in Louisville, Kentucky.

• Mayor Andrew Broaddus (Louisville)

  Moored off River Road and Fourth Street in Louisville, Kentucky, the Mayor Andrew Broaddus is the only surviving floating lifesaving station of the United States…

• Big Four Bridge (Louisville)

  Six steel truss spans carry the Big Four Bridge across the Ohio River from Louisville, Kentucky, to Jeffersonville, Indiana.

• Frazier History Museum (West Main District)

  Founded in 2004 as a museum of historical arms and armor, the Frazier History Museum sits on Museum Row in the West Main District of…

• Louisville Slugger Museum & Factory (West Main District)

  Louisville Slugger bats have their own museum and factory here on Museum Row, in the West Main District of downtown Louisville, Kentucky.

• Kentucky Science Center (West Main District)

  At 727 West Main Street, a cast-iron facade from 1878 fronts the Kentucky Science Center, Kentucky's largest science museum and a proud stop on Museum…

• KMAC Museum (West Main District)

  KMAC Contemporary Art Museum fills a four-story historic cast iron building in the West Main District of downtown Louisville.

• Muhammad Ali Center (West Main District)

  Dedicated to boxer Muhammad Ali, a native of Louisville, the Muhammad Ali Center rises six stories in the West Main District, founded by Ali and…

• Old Bank of Louisville (downtown Louisville)

  Two fluted stone columns with Ionic capitals mark the Old Bank of Louisville at 316 West Main Street, a narrow stone face on the south…

• Humana Building (Downtown Louisville)

  Michael Graves designed the 26-story Humana Building at 500 West Main Street, completed in May 1985 in flat pink granite.

• AEGON Center (Downtown Louisville)

  Reinforced concrete carries the 35-story tower you see at 400 West Market in Downtown Louisville.

• PNC Plaza (Downtown)

  Welton Becket designed 500 West Jefferson, the 31-story tower that older residents still call PNC Plaza, completed in 1971.

• The Kentucky Center (Louisville)

  Opened in 1983 and owned by Kentucky Performing Arts, the Kentucky Center for the Performing Arts is home to the Kentucky Opera, the Louisville Ballet…

• The Louisville Palace (theater district)

  John Eberson designed the Palace Theatre, the Spanish Baroque house that locals call the Louisville Palace, here on the east side of Fourth Street between…

• Fourth Street Live! (Downtown)

  On June 1, 2004, Fourth Street Live!

• W. L. Lyons Brown Theatre (Downtown Louisville)

  Modeled after New York's Music Box Theatre, the W. L. Lyons Brown Theatre opened as the Brown Theatre on October 5, 1925.

• Seelbach Hotel (Louisville)

  Louis and Otto Seelbach, Bavarian-born brothers, opened the Seelbach Hotel here in 1905, now the Seelbach Hilton Louisville.

• Brown Hotel (downtown Louisville)

  James Graham Brown spent $4 million on the Brown Hotel, the 16-story landmark that opened at Fourth and Broadway in 1923.

• Pendennis Club (Louisville)

  Patterned on the great London clubs, the Pendennis Club sits at 218 West Muhammad Ali Boulevard, formerly Walnut Street, in Louisville, Kentucky.

• Union Station (Louisville)

  Since mid-April 1980, Louisville's Union Station, the grand railroad head of 1891, has housed the Transit Authority of River City, or TARC.

• Louisville City Hall (Downtown Louisville)

  Completed in 1873 and placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1976, Louisville City Hall stands at 601 West Jefferson Street.

• Cathedral of the Assumption (Louisville)

  Notice the mother church of the Archdiocese of Louisville, right here in Kentucky.

• Christ Church Cathedral (Louisville)

  Christ Church Cathedral is the oldest church building in Louisville.

• First Christian Church (Louisville)

  McDonald & Dodd designed the Beaux Arts First Christian Church, built in 1910 at 850 S. 4th Street in Louisville, Kentucky, and now home to…

• Waterfront Botanical Gardens (Butchertown)

  Along Beargrass Creek, in the Butchertown neighborhood east of Downtown Louisville, Kentucky, the Waterfront Botanical Gardens cover 23 acres.

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