My home city of Indianapolis is not, in most respects, a city of great topographic variation. This should not come as a surprise to anyone who has either spent time in Indiana or who forms conclusions about the Hoosier State from its representation in popular culture. It’s a state of primarily fertile land. Corn. Soybeans.
Several years ago, a perfectly ordinary drive-thru Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) in Indianapolis flourished, collecting business both from locals in the area (near the south side enclave of Southport), and, most likely, people passing through the city along Interstate 65, for which there was an exit ramp from Southport Road just a few hundred feet
The Dolphin Mansion is up for sale again! Indianapolis’s most notorious home has struggled to find an occupant for the last seventeen years, but it’s not for lack of trying. Actually more of a campus with six structures on a mega-lot, surrounded by mid-century middle-class housing that’s a lot humbler (and I mean that in
It’s rare that I create a follow-up post so quickly on the heels of the original, since both articles deal with more or less the same topic. But my post at Pickwick Commons back in late May investigated the possibility of taking an existing utility easement and doubling it with a pedestrian easement. That is,
The subject of this article should win some sort of award for the longest one in the making, but, twelve years later, it has culminated in a major accomplishment: a certain landmark building now has an article permanently inscribed in the Digital Encyclopedia of Indianapolis, courtesy of yours truly. The structure is the former First
For the small handful of people who are this blog’s devotees, the image below may be a tiny bit familiar. I’ve covered this small subdivision in New Albany, Indiana once before. The name is Pickwick Commons, an age-restricted townhome development in which the retirement-age residents retain (at most) a small garden plot to cultivate, but
My latest post is on Urban Indy. It comes with the local news (WISH-TV) announcement that it has now been five years since Indianapolis grocery store chain Marsh Supermarkets closed all of its 44 remaining locations, having been run by private equity firm Sun Capital for the last 15 years. The chain, a staple of
We have now reached, almost to the day, the point when the majority of US states, taking the lead from a national disaster declaration, began issuing safety precautions in an attempt to prevent the spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), better known as COVID-19, the number attributing the year in which epidemiologists
I rarely indulge in this sort of thing, mostly to keep my blog’s focus. But I’m not so dour that I need to avoid it altogether, even here on the site. And I might as well crank out a short article while I work on a two-part feature to conclude the month. Many people noted
I caught wind of these competing, brightly contrasting layers of graffiti on a side street during my last visit to Indianapolis. A rainbow of vandalism, so it seems. Sure, it sort of looks like tagging, but is it really fooling anybody? The barely discernible reflection should indicate that these tags are behind a pane of
My home city of Indianapolis is not, in most respects, a city of great topographic variation. This should not come as a surprise to anyone who has either spent time in Indiana or
Several years ago, a perfectly ordinary drive-thru Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) in Indianapolis flourished, collecting business both from locals in the area (near the south side enclave of Southport), and, most likely, people
The Dolphin Mansion is up for sale again! Indianapolis’s most notorious home has struggled to find an occupant for the last seventeen years, but it’s not for lack of trying. Actually more of
It’s rare that I create a follow-up post so quickly on the heels of the original, since both articles deal with more or less the same topic. But my post at Pickwick Commons
The subject of this article should win some sort of award for the longest one in the making, but, twelve years later, it has culminated in a major accomplishment: a certain landmark building
For the small handful of people who are this blog’s devotees, the image below may be a tiny bit familiar. I’ve covered this small subdivision in New Albany, Indiana once before. The name
My latest post is on Urban Indy. It comes with the local news (WISH-TV) announcement that it has now been five years since Indianapolis grocery store chain Marsh Supermarkets closed all of its
We have now reached, almost to the day, the point when the majority of US states, taking the lead from a national disaster declaration, began issuing safety precautions in an attempt to prevent
I rarely indulge in this sort of thing, mostly to keep my blog’s focus. But I’m not so dour that I need to avoid it altogether, even here on the site. And I
I caught wind of these competing, brightly contrasting layers of graffiti on a side street during my last visit to Indianapolis. A rainbow of vandalism, so it seems. Sure, it sort of looks