ColDayMan and I rode this Saturday to Indianapolis. Thanks for taking a look. An excellent mix of architecture in this underrated city to our west.

 

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IMG_0262 by jfre81, on Flickr

 

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©2015/jfre81

Nice tour, thanks for sharing! Nice to see some non-downtown shots, and man do they have a way better capitol building.

You have a great eye for photography.

Beautiful thread.  Indianapolis has SO MUCH STUFF packed into such a small area.  It's really quite impressive.

Great set of photos! I think I could go back and spend a day just on the War Memorial area alone. The engraved "letters to home" were really poignant, glad you gave them tribute.

 

Indianapolis has some real architectural gems but my impression was there are an awful lot of Brutalist eyesores. Not all Brutalist buildings *are* eyesores but they had some doozies. Unfortunate to see their tallest also got the logo treatment :-\

I have always felt Indianapolis has a great downtown but not terribly impressed with its urban neigborhoods.

Great photos and thank you for sharing!

 

My girlfriend is in professional school in Indianapolis so I spend a lot of time there.  She lives in the Broad Ripple area, which I believe is one of the more popular areas in the city outside of downtown / fountain square.

 

It is mostly single family housing but they do have the Monon Trail which was a rails to trails program, I believe.  There is some development a long the trail, but not a whole lot, really.  And Broad Ripple Avenue has a lot of bars and shops, it is a nice little strip.  There is also some commercial strips off of Broad Ripple Avenue.  Most of the housing is single family but there are some apartment complexes. 

 

In between Broad Ripple and Downtown, there isn't a whole lot as far as I can tell beside large single family homes.  The blocks are fairly long north to South.  On some main intersections, there are corner restaurants and stores, like a Whole Foods, etc. 

 

Overall, it is a very nice, clean city, and it looks as though there is a decent amount of development going downtown.  Cincinnati seems a bit grittier but also more compact downtown, and more intact small neighborhood business districts.  Indy has a great downtown and there doesn't seem to be many boarded up buildings, although I could be missing a lot.  The bars there downtown are really big and open, a bit different than here.  I think I like Cincinnati better but for a lot of people who don't care so much about more pedestrian oriented cities, it could be a toss up.

ColDayMan and I went to Broad Ripple but it was dark (these short winter days) and I didn't take the camera out over there. It's a priority for my next Indy visit. Would like to explore more outside downtown next run. There, then maybe Irvington and 10th Street area near the Rivoli Theater where it looks like it's making a positive transition. Spring would be a good time to hit up Woodruff Place nearby too.

 

Woodruff Place reminds me some of Boulevard Oaks in Houston. But with roundabouts and fountains, which would be working in spring with the trees turning and so forth. That would make a nice photo tour.

I never spent a lot of time outside of Broad Ripple since my girlfriend is always studying, so I typically will walk around that area.  That sounds like a great area to photograph.

 

I also have driven quite a few times up and down Meridian Street from Broad Ripple area to downtown.  Getting closer to downtown, I really like how that avenue is set up and it is very urban.  That could be a nice place to photograph as well, sort of like a "mid town" area.  Then once you cross underneath the interstate, you know you are downtown.

Photo 92 above caught my eye.

 

They are 524, 528, 532 E. Walnut Street.  At first I thought the middle one was historic and the others were new, but they are all new and they are all valued at close to $1 million.  Anyone familiar with the neighborhood?

^Some fine examples of quality Indy infill. Lots of it is good.

 

IAGuy - definitely. That midtown area seems like it had been a bit rundown but is transitioning.

 

Go north on Meridian from Broad Ripple and you will get to Meridian Hills, which has a little terrain to break up the otherwise flatness of the area. Feels a lot like over here in Dayton where I am.

To jskinner (2 posts above).  Those townhomes are about a 1/2 block off of Massachusetts Ave - which is one of the busiest and nicest commercial corridors downtown.  Lots of good restaurants, theater, live music and local shopping nearby.  This is in the NE part of downtown.  The area was already the densest residential part of downtown, but over the past few years, thousands more new apartment units have been built and continue to be built in tye area.  Those homes are in a prime quadrant of downtown and there are a few more that are simiilar on that same block.

 

The historic Lockerbie Square neighborhood is two blocks south of these homes.  These homes are technically located in the southern part of the Chatham Arch neighborhood.

Photo 92 above caught my eye.

 

They are 524, 528, 532 E. Walnut Street.  At first I thought the middle one was historic and the others were new, but they are all new and they are all valued at close to $1 million.  Anyone familiar with the neighborhood?

 

Those look just like the ones they build in Chicago.  I'm wondering if it was a developer from Chicago that did those.

The thing that stands out about Indinanapolis compared to its peer cities like Columbus and Austin is the new infill. There are quite a lot of high quality buildings that I was shocked to see. It looked better than infill in San Francisco! The city is heading in the right direction, no doubt. People are really down-to-earth and friendly there too. I also suspect it's an island of Blue in a sea of Red. It has more counter-culture than one would expect given it's in Indiana. It largely avoided hipsters too, so major score on that front. Women were also shockingly gorgeous with Tinder blowing me away. There is pretty good style in Indianapolis for a Midwestern city, and I went away surprised by this. It's not yuppie. It's not hipster. It's not country. It's not ghetto. I'm not sure what it is, but it works. Culturally, it's stronger that its reputation would suggest. There is a real local identity there, and the city has branded itself well. The Indy 500 also gets a lot of credit for being one of the most unique events in the United States and being American as all hell. It's quite the party atmosphere and represents some of the most extreme aspects of our culture. I like when cities have stuff that is over-the-top and aggressively in your face like that. That's what makes America America. It's like how New Orleans has Mardi Gras. Savannah has St. Patrick's Day. Athens has Halloween. Austin has South by Southwest. San Francisco has Bay To Breakers. And Vegas has Vegas. It's always good when cities have huge events like this.

 

Where Indy beats its twin city Columbus is with tourism and hotels. The Downtown has a JW Marriott and it seems overbuilt on hotel rooms likely due to its large conventions and the Indy 500. There are a lot of nice, big, renovated hotels downtown that can hang with much wealthier cities. There is likely more tourism in Indianapolis than in other inland cities far removed from the Atlantic, Pacific, and Great Lakes. They're doing something right on that front, and I'm guessing they get a lot of big conventions.

 

Where Indy is weak is on second ring and third ring residential neighborhoods (unless you like big yards). It seems to thin out faster than it should given its age. I suspect it didn't develop as dense as any of the Big 4 Ohio cities at peak. Setbacks are large even in some of the older neighborhoods, and there are a ton of trees and forests right in the middle of urban areas. It was much more woodsy than I expected. All these forests created a bizarre feel and the city might be more disconnected than Columbus. There isn't a long, vibrant, contiguous corridor like High Street. Indianapolis is overall more like Broad Street. I think having Ohio State gives Columbus an edge when it comes to these post-WW2 inland Midwestern boom towns.

 

Indy nightlife also isn't on the level of a comparable city like Austin despite Indianapolis being more urban with much better architecture. While I agree it's overall a clean and well-kept city, I had no trouble finding bad areas that were grittier than comparable spots in Columbus. Indianapolis had more of an industrial legacy than most people realize and it got hit hard by deindustrialization. Obviously it's nothing like Gary or South Bend, but there are more Rust Belt elements than expected. It seems like every Midwestern city has run-down, abandoned, and destroyed areas. There are a few dismal post-industrial areas not far from downtown that are even creepier than in your typical Great Lakes port (excluding Gary of course). This is partly due to the forests of the city which make things feel isolated.

To jskinner (2 posts above).  Those townhomes are about a 1/2 block off of Massachusetts Ave - which is one of the busiest and nicest commercial corridors downtown.  Lots of good restaurants, theater, live music and local shopping nearby.  This is in the NE part of downtown.  The area was already the densest residential part of downtown, but over the past few years, thousands more new apartment units have been built and continue to be built in tye area.  Those homes are in a prime quadrant of downtown and there are a few more that are simiilar on that same block.

 

The historic Lockerbie Square neighborhood is two blocks south of these homes.  These homes are technically located in the southern part of the Chatham Arch neighborhood.

 

Yeah, I liked this area of downtown, and I was really impressed by the infill development. They're not cheeping out like in most other American cities. Big props to Indy for having building standards and pushing for density. I loved how Massachusetts Avenue was an angled street terminating at the center of downtown. I love when cities do that. It seems like Indy is still in a big building boom downtown with all sorts of empty lots being prepped for construction. I bet in 10 years, it will be amazing. I could also see them bucking the more conservative state government and getting light rail built on streets like Meridian. This would create all sorts of spinoff development to better connect the urban nodes outside of downtown.

 

*The economy seemed strong there for a Midwestern city, so I think this boom can last a long time. It's also important to keep in mind pre-WW2 Center Township Indianapolis lost 50% of its population, so it got hit a little harder than pre-WW2 Old Columbus, which only lost about 40% of its population. That's what makes its transformation important to watch. This infill is repopulating the area and they're building back the density. I was surprised that some new Indianapolis buildings were scaled to SOMA San Francisco levels. I figured they'd go smaller since there are still so many empty lots. It makes me think they're planning for a long boom in the urban core and some sort of transit system...

^Indy is a really cool city.  Their downtown is very clean and they have a lot of big bars and restaurants.  It also has a little Chicago feel at times, especially where the Amtrack is downtown and the bars below the tracks. 

 

It does thin out very fast.  I spend most of my time when in Indy in Broad Ripple, which is a cool area akin to a mix of Mount Adams and Mount Lookout in Cincinnati, but about twice the size of them combined.  There really isn't a whole lot of other areas in Indy as far as I know for nightlife besides Downtown and Broad Ripple, though I heard the Fountain Square neighborhood is starting to take shape, I haven't been.

 

I can only really compare it to Cincinnati since I haven't spent any amount of time in Columbus or Cleveland.  Cincinnati is definitely a lot more dense, and Indy definitely has that suburban feel throughout a lot of the city.  I think a transit trunk line north on Meridian from Downtown would do really well, but zoning would have to change in a lot of the areas as large single family lots dominate for the most part heading north. 

 

I don't know what I would prefer between Cincy and Indy.  I think Cincy has more of that old world feel and has more of the big city feel than Indy throughout most of the city, even though they are about the same size metro wise.  Indianapolis really reminds me of Cedar Rapids, IA though 10x bigger, where you got the downtown area then it thins out quickly afterwards, and it has nice, long straight boulevards.  It depends on the person I would say over who prefers what.  I would say that Cincinnati really has a lot greater potential in just downtown and OTR, going to Uptown and across to Walnut Hills, to really bring a dense, historic city back to life.  Indy probably has a better overall economy right now, and is also building more in the center city than Cincinnati it seems, but will have more of a "new city" feel than Cincinnati will have overall.  If Indy goes with a light rail trunk line from downtown straight north through the center of Indy up to it's wealthier suburbs, and they change zoning in specific spots to take advantage of TOD, I think the city will really benefit considering it's population is really moving well right now for a midwestern city.

Very nice photo essay.  I particularly thought the love letters from Vietnam memorial was particularly moving and unique...

 

As has been noted, people often compare Columbus and Indy.  Even though C-Bus has the strong plus with OSU in town, I still prefer Indy because it just seems a tad more cosmopolitan than Columbus.  Indianapolis, though, is kinda weird to me.  They have a very interesting and lively downtown which especially revolves around its sports stadia.  I've always loved Monument Circle which has a distinct European flair to it.  And there are a couple cool neighborhoods to the north and adjacent to downtown that have interesting old housing and lively restaurant/bar scenes.  Other than that, I don't find much to the City.  There's a wealthy area north along Meridian Street where, I believe, the governor's mansion is.  People make a big deal about Broad Ripple as this hot, interesting neighborhood, but to me, ... Meh. 

 

Also, the Monon rails-to-trail represents a huge lost opportunity for a light rail corridor up the gut.  Indy, of course, has it's share of transit problems like most Midwest cities and even it's extensive BRT proposal is in jeopardy I understand because of conservatives.