Gary & Judy met at UK when he was teaching architecture and she was studying community development. Eventually, after they got married (nearly 54 years ago!) she persuaded him to move back home to Louisville and Portland where they happily raised their three kids, Jessie, John & Zachary, here. Zach still lives here in a house he bought right next door to them, with a gate through the back fence. All three went through St Cecelia’s School, where her mom went. Her grandmother, Jessie Peebles, and great-grandfather Jess Bartley, worked hard for Nelligan Hall North End Democratic Club while she was growing up, and they always had to go see her uncle, Dr. Ed Bartley DMD, the dentist at 26th & Market. “I grew up believing Portland was a little country town on the edge of Louisville, with great neighbors, vegetable gardens and hunting dogs because of Mom & Pop Bartley’s home on old 21 St! So, when we moved back in 1978, of course we moved back to Portland.”
Sharon Wilbert was Portland’s Councilwoman who got Gary and Judy involved. Between her love for Portland people and Gary’s skills with construction and planning, they’ve seen a lot of ups and downs, good fights for Portland, and a bunch of losses.
The old Portland Development Organization that Sharon started hired Gary to renovate Portland’s first round of 10 homes sold to Portland families in the 1980’s, back when there was still federal funding for home ownership. (one of them even has solar energy)
They were still getting housing done in 2008 when the new group, Portland Now Inc., and New Directions won $3 million dollars from the City to help 75 Portland homeowners repair their homes. (with help from Mary McCoy & Herb Broderick to lobby HUD)
In between and since then there were zoning battles and a down-zoning ordinance, boarding house rules, fights with big developers and new ideas Metro adopted that let neighbors have first dibs on a vacant side lot, or knock off the liens if you’d rehab a vacant house. (Debra Mercer, Tim Crabtree & others worked hard on these hearings)
Block Clean-Ups! (Which she said she never organized but always attended)
There’s a file folder of dozens of small developers who made improvements to their construction plans because Portland stood up for better housing and Gary could reason with them, or some that they shut down. (You hear complaints about the ones somebody didn’t like, but there are dozens of others that went great. The “Revitalization Committee” included Herb, Mary McCoy, and Jerry Brinson)
Another file has about 30 renovated buildings that still stand because PNI kept them off the demolition list – most recently the old pharmacy at 26th & Bank that they all hoped could be a bakery some day soon. (Gary personally propped up the cupola one night on his own and argued with the City that it was totally safe! He won, and helped find a buyer.)
And, of course, the Welcome To Historic Portland SIGN that Gary designed, with new landscaping at the corner of 22nd & Portland. (LOTS of help from donated labor, funders, and PNI, but Judy was usually the crew boss. NOTE: the MODERN Sign was paid for by PNI but was designed & installed by Aron Conoway.)
All of that came from literally “putting Portland on the map” with the Portland Neighborhood Plan, around 2006, that hundreds of people created with their comments during that two-year planning process (Deb Mercer, Larry Stoess, Mary Turner, Natalie Andrews & them.
And Gary started the Portland Art & Heritage Fair in 2014, with a great art show & trolley ride for a history tour of the neighborhood. (Judy’s Great-grandpa Bartley was a conductor on the original Portland Avenue Trolley when it was pulled by a mule, and then the Main St Trolley when they were electrified.
But none of this would’ve happened, or been any fun, if it weren’t for the great people who worked on all of it along with us: Sharon, Alma Wright, Mary Turner, Deb Mercer, Tim Crabtree, and many, many others who put the time in to speak up for this neighborhood.”
We would like to invite Judy and Gary to stop by our store and pick up your $50.00 gift card as a small token of our immense appreciation for the contributions you have made to the Portland community.
