The Socially Distant Brockton Lane Tree Challenge Part 4, Operation Brightside was Postponed. #TeamKentucky

On March 15, 2020 I had posted a list of things that could be done in the public spaces around the Bon Air Neighborhood.  

1. Cleaning around the Bardstown Road Mural (the panhandlers leave their trash)
2. Cleaning north of the Thorntons on Bardstown Rd 
3. Clipping the branches along the chain link fence on Brockton Lane on the Taylorsville Rd Ramp (on the Highgate Springs side  of the fence of course)
4. Cleaning up the trash on Goldsmith Lane around Beargrass Creek south of Seneca High School
5. Cleaning up Brockton Lane both around Bon Air Estates and Highgate Springs
6. If you are really ambitious, there is Beargrass Creek between Bardstown Rd and Downing Lane.
7. For the really stir crazy, there is the Bardstown Road median between Bashford Manor and Hikes Lane (this one also seems the most nerve-racking/risky one, but we will try to do it on 4/18/2020 during Operation Brightside and there will still be a lot of trash)

I finished #3 last week (3/29/2020), I finished clipping the three overgrown trees. It was a two-Sunday afternoon job.  This week I did #5 and #1. 

On number 5 I did most of the right of way on Brockton Lane in Highgate Springs. As I cleaned up I thought about how Brockton Lane was once the unofficial Bon Air drag strip prior to the widening of the Watterson.  Two different people I had interviewed for a ethnographic paper talked about it and one of them actually said that he raced on it.

Brockton Lane is mostly unoccupied but by apartment houses. 

With the widening of the Watterson Expressway, Brockton lane was cut into two portions.
The Highgate Springs portion of Brockton is mostly a neglected area.  I remember coming out one time with my children when they were both students at Goldsmith Elementary and they were gung ho about Earth Day and picking up trash.

On this day I collected about three and a half bags of recycling and trash in addition to part of a car fender and a Christmas Tree.

The sad part was how many liquor bottles and beer cans were in the grass. Brockton Lane has been a dumping ground. 

The last place I addressed was #1 and cleaned up the Bardstown Rd Mural. 

It was not as bad as I thought it was but there is what I will call a panhandler pile that I cleaned up around.  Among what I found was a panhandling sign and a broken half-gallon bottle that is typically used for Vodka or Whiskey.    The individual(s)  who left the trash bag left a heavy load behind.

As I walked to and from the mural, I noted that there was a collection of trash I would conclude to have been a homeless camp on a concrete slab that was north of the Thorntons that what I think was the old second building of the Holiday Inn/Quality Inn.  There was also lots of trash on the ground between the Thorntons on the east side of Bardstown Rd all the way up to the mural (item #2 on the list).

I close this post noting that Operation Brightside was postponed this year by Louisville Metro (which is no surprise).  So, on April 18 we will not be gathering to clean up one or more of the areas.  However, feel free to get out and pick up some trash.  People are still throwing trash out of their cars and dropping litter.   I encourage the residents of the Bon Air Neighborhood to get out and take pride in your neighborhood by cleaning up around  streets and the public areas noted above . . ..safely of course with proper social distancing