The first Sunday in May, the Residents of MainStrasse Association (ROMA) volunteers, capped off two months of work beautifying an alley in their Covington neighborhood. The unnamed alley parallels Main Street behind a row of homes and stores between West 7th and 8th streets. Leading up to the party, volunteers cleared trash, pulled weeds, ground stumps, and power washed the brick-paved alley.

Once all of the debris was gone, new planters and mulch arrived to provide a place for flowers. A blank wall became a palette for a new mural and neighborhood children added another mural to a segment of wood fence.

Almost 400 people came out Sun. May 3 to hear live music by MainStrasse musicians, enjoy food donated by local businesses, and take in the transformed alley. A $5,000 municipal grant funded the work and the party to highlight the neighborhood and the city’s historic alleys.

COVertNKY offered two mini-vice-stroll walking tours showcasing the neighborhood’s ties to bootlegging and gambling history.

We also produced and installed a pop-up museum that documented the alley and neighborhood’s history. The six panels included historic photos and maps that illustrated such topics as a neighboring church that burned in 1985, the history of the subdivision where the alley is located, an overview of Covington alley history, and a series of historical points in time illustrated by Sanborn fire insurance maps.

Pop-up museum panels slideshow:

© 2026 D.S. Rotenstein