Downtown Louisville Kentucky

Downtown Louisville Kentucky is charming and certainly worth exploring for many reasons. But the two I want to highlight here are the golden replica of Michelangelo’s David and the Louisville Slugger Museum and Factory.

First off, let’s talk about David. This thirty foot tall sculpture is almost twice the size of Michelangelo’s original masterpiece in Florence, Italy. Instead of being sculpted from marble, the version at the corner of North 17th Street and 31 West, is made of foam that has been sprayed gold.

This particular David is owned by the 21c Museum Hotel chain and stands just outside their headquarters in beautiful downtown Louisville Kentucky. Turkish artist Serkan Özkaya is responsible for recreating Michelangelo’s masterpiece. It was originally a project for the Istanbul Biennial art exhibition, David unfortunately collapsed under his own weight. The artist salvaged and restored the statue and created two more casts. One of those casts was acquired by 21c Museum Hotels.

After being displayed briefly in New York, David was brought to his permanent home in Louisville. This is, to say the least, an interesting addition to the city scape, even if it’s not the most tasteful.

When I learned about this unusual attraction, I just HAD to see it for myself. I have been in love with David since 1967. While I was in college I was lucky enough to spend a month traveling through Europe with a college friend. One of our stops was in Florence. While there we went to see the original David at the Accademia Gallery. At the time it was not enclosed and you could actually touch the marble!

I had been meeting and falling in love with young men at every stop along our journey. So when I saw the David, I immediately bought a postcard with his picture so I could share with my parents that I was in love again. They totally approved of my being in love with David and got a good laugh all at the same time.

The David in Louisville cannot hold a candle to the original. It is gaudy and fun. And the enormity of its size makes it quite the spectacle. The original David is elegant and magnificent and will always hold a very special place in my heart.

Now let’s take a short walk down the street. Shall we? That’s where you will find the world’s largest baseball bat. This bat is just outside the Louisville Slugger Museum and Factory. Just how big is the big bat in front of the museum, you ask? Really, really big!!! The total weight of the bat is approximately 68,000 pounds. The hollow interior has a 30,000 gallon capacity. The bat is constructed of ASTM A36 carbon steel and is 120-feet long and 9-feet diameter at the base; 3-feet 6-inches in diameter at the handle with a 6-foot 6-inch diameter knob. As you can see by my photo, it’s bigger than the building. Now that’s really enormous.

The bat is an exact scale replica of the R34, 34-inch wood bat, designed to specifications requested by Babe Ruth in the early 1920s. The Bud Hillerich signature that appears with the famous oval logo is a tribute to John A. Bud Hillerich, who turned the company’s very first bat in 1884. The bat was installed on October 21, 1995.

After visiting those two attractions in downtown Louisville Kentucky we decided to just drive around and explore more of the area. We came to the Ohio River and decided to take the beautiful golden bridge across the river to see where it would take us. And just like that, we were in Jeffersonville Indiana.

We drove along the beautiful waterfront and through downtown, marveling about how wonderful it was to be in small town America where time had seemingly stood still!