Four years ago, a long vacant historic frame building on East Third street collapsed. I wrote about the former store/residence the day after it crashed creaking and groaning to the ground, but I had been wondering about the building for years before its demise. As is often the case, I learned more about the building after my initial post, and my plan was to write a follow-up once the lot was redeveloped. I’m still waiting for that to happen.
Circa 1981 photo by Walter Langsam. Kentucky Heritage Council files.
The only activity I’ve seen on the corner lot since 2015 has been the erection of “for sale” sign. But that empty lot had been a busy hub since the late 19th century, when an enterprising Irishman by the name of Thomas J. Danahy opened a grocery store on the ground floor, and lived above the store with his family.
Before the collapse, the building at the corner of East Third and Race Streets, March 2015.
Danahy arrived in Lexington during the Civil War, and first worked as a teacher at St. Paul’s Parochial School. From a stint in education, Danahy opened a bookstore on Main Street in downtown Lexington, and then set himself up as an undertaker. By the 1880s, he went into the grocery business, and opened a store in a newly constructed frame building with Italianate details. Danahy, by this time a City Councilman, shrewdly located his establishment close to the Kentucky Association Race Track.
The new grandstand at the Kentucky Association Race track, which was located at the east end of 5th Street at Race Street.
The business operated not only as a grocery, but also a saloon- a decision aimed to entice the men visiting the nearby racetrack. Following his death in 1896, his sons continued the grocery business, but by the turn of the century, the Danahy brothers moved onto other ventures.
From the September 14, 1896 edition of the Morning Herald in Lexington, Kentucky.
The building continued on as a grocery store and then a drugstore, as I explored in my 2015 post. Even after the nearby racetrack closed in 1933, businesses in the area continued to thrive.
The Consolidated Drug Store was an “up to date” establishment in the 1930s.
The East Third Street corridor changed dramatically following the desegregation of businesses in Lexington in the 1960s. Now, new businesses are locating in the neighborhood, and some buildings and houses are being restored. Four years isn’t a long time to wait if the lot is redeveloped in a thoughtful fashion – with a building that blends in well with the historic neighborhood, and a business that enhances the community. We’ll see what happens…
