'Urbanist' Branden Klayko, Broken Sidewalk founder, dies

• Visitation is Thursday; funeral is Friday

Branden Klayko, a Louisvillian whose passion for architecture and urban design fueled the influential website Broken Sidewalk, has died.

He was 33 and had been battling leukemia.

Klayko founded Broken Sidewalk in 2008 while he was practicing architecture in Louisville. It covers development, transportation and urban design with a level of detail that reflected his academic background and professional experience in architecture and the care he felt for his hometown.

"He loved Louisville," said Al Klayko, his father. "He wanted so much for Louisville to be at the forefront of everything."

Al Klayko described his son as an "avid urbanist" who even had grand visions for the city's downtown alleys as places for cafes and other shops

Klayko spent several years living and working in New York, running Broken Sidewalk from there until he returned to Louisville last year.

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On Monday, Mayor Greg Fischer praised Klayko and lamented his passing.

“Branden was a thoughtful, intelligent writer who challenged us to make the city better." Fischer said in a written statement. "He loved his hometown but saw ways it could be improved, and his writing went beyond criticism to offering specific ideas for improvement. His voice, his ideas and his vision will live beyond the short time he was with us.”

Supportive of some projects – the transformation under way at Whiskey Row, for example – and critical of others, Klayko would sometimes take Louisville and its political leaders to task.

Kayko didn't like the suburban design of the ill-fated West End Walmart, for example. On the new Omni Hotel that's rising into Louisville's skyline, he once wrote that Third Street will be "a dead canyon of blank parking garage walls and fake storefronts."

Louisville's long-term vision for transportation – its Move Louisville plan – is "filled with ambition," he wrote in 2016. But "there are a lot of unanswered questions, questionable proposals, and few teeth behind much of what is being offered."

Gant Hill, president of real estate brokerage Gant Hill and Associates, said he appreciated that Klayko didn't use a bullhorn to make his points; rather, he used insightful persuasion.

He called Klayko "one of the most thoughtful, respectful and educated writers that I have met. He loved architecture and was able to capture the essence of the subjects that he wrote about. He will be missed greatly. It is a sad day in Louisville."

Klayko wrote on his Facebook page in late May that he had been "lucky enough" to marry his favorite person, Melissa Baird, six weeks earlier. "The timing was perfect - five months after undergoing a bone marrow transplant for leukemia, my immune system was recovering which allowed me a near-normal diet, to walk, and even dance some."

But he also wrote then that he was experiencing a setback and till was looking forward to getting back to running Broken Sidewalk to its full potential.

Mary Beth Brown, an acquaintance, said Broken Sidewalk offered a "detailed account of a city I thought I knew, but I had no idea the complexity of the neighborhoods, streets and development that surrounded me."

She said that "we must keep Branden's work and energy alive and progressing.  He has been such a noble example for us all. Let's honor him through collaboration and a shared love for this space we call home."

The 2002 Trinity High School graduate was a 2007 graduate of Washington University in St. Louis with an architecture degree.

Visitation is 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. Thursday at Pearson Funeral Home, 149 Breckenridge Lane, with the funeral service there at noon Friday.

Reach reporter James Bruggers at 502-582-4645 and at jbruggers@courier-journal.com.