Retracing my steps back down Broadway Street to Fourth Street, we see a bank, perhaps the tallest historic building in downtown Paducah with some interesting modern additions…

West of 4th Street is perhaps not as rehabbed as east, but there is just as beautiful of Victorian Period buildings from Paducah’s Nineteenth Century heritage.

The Weille Building shows perhaps the influence of Orientalism on American architectural trends in the 1800s.

But just a few dozen yards away we see the Art-Deco.

And the older Romanesque Revival…

As is typical in every city, we see the appearance of slipcovers, which is the addition of new facades either gracefully or crudely added onto the fronts of older buildings. I like this one below, particularly with the type font chosen.

Then there’s this ensemble of three major buildings; we’ll look at the church tomorrow, but first up is the Columbia Theater.

Built in 1927, it originally opened as a vaudeville theater, apparently, before switching over to movies. It has its own website.

I know I’ve seen that frieze up on the pediment before, and it’s driving me crazy! It’s Italian and from the Fifteenth Century. Cupid is driving the chariot.

The theater’s use of terracotta would impress a St. Louis builder.

Jumping by the church, we’re confronted with this amazing Tudor Revival apartment building.

Now low-income housing with a seemingly checkered record, it is now named after Irvin S. Cobb, a famous author and humorist who hailed from Paducah. I do not know if he once lived in the building; I suspect the apartments once was an elite address in the city.

Nonetheless, it is an excellent example of the style adapted to a large building.