Covington does little to tell the stories about the city’s colorful history as one of the most criminally and politically corrupt places in the United States.
Those stories are easy to find in old newspaper articles, federal and congressional investigation records and in the many books and academic journal articles written about gambling and vice in Northern Kentucky. Covington’s mobbed-up history got a little harder to recognize in 2021 after city officials approved a restaurant’s new sign proposal.
The Riverside Korean restaurant is located at 512-514 Madison Ave., inside the Covington Downtown Commercial Historic District, which includes more than 200 buildings first listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1983.
The restaurant is also inside a City of Covington Historic Preservation Overlay Zone. The National Register listing is honorific only and carries no regulatory burden for property owners unless there a federal project involving federal funds or permits…