Amid national news last week that federal funding for bike trails is in danger of coming to a screeching halt, Indianapolis announced progress in the other direction. The Indy Bike Hub YMCA, including the city’s first commuter facility for bikers, is on track to open in August.
I can’t remember the last time I saw him. He was a fixture, a perennial, as much a sign of summer on the Circle as the lunchtime picnickers on the Monument steps, his slightly-out-of-tune guitar and deep baritone harmonizing with the background din of traffic and construction and rushing water fountains. And then he was gone.
On Wednesday, Circle Citizen reported that a design by two landscape architects from Paris had taken first place in the Monument Circle Idea Competition. But the second-place entry, “RE:Centering Indianapolis 1001,” by Urban Design Studio of RATIO Architects, is getting all the buzz—and for all the wrong reasons. Critics have pointed out that one of the idea’s renderings includes an image of La Tour Vivante (“The Living Tower”), a celebrated French building, without giving attribution to its designers at the Parisian firm SOA Architectes. And some of them are throwing around the dreaded “p” word. (That is, “plagiarism.”)
Earlier today, Circle Citizen joined a breathless crowd in the lobby of Chase Tower to learn who won the much-ballyhooed Monument Circle Idea Competition. He was not disappointed. “From Inertia to Inner Circle,” devised by two Parisian landscape architects, took top honors and a $5,000 prize—just enough, presumably, to cover the travel expenses incurred by the e
Walking around the Circle, you may have noticed the faint etchings of names in the bricks. In the late 1970’s, Commission for Downtown began a revitalization project that included re-bricking Monument Circle and allowed citizens to have their names engraved there in return for a small donation. These are the stories of the individuals, families, and companies whose names can be found engraved along the most famous streets in the city.
Look! Up in the sky! It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s, oh wait, it is a bird. Three birds actually. Perched high above the Circle, on the 31st floor of the Market Tower, are two adult peregrine falcons, Kinney and KathyQ, and their newest hatchling, Phoenix. The news of Phoenix’ s arrival last month (April 28) might have flown under the […]
Lest we forget, Monument Circle takes its name from the great war memorial here. And the pomp and circumstance of a military parade suit it as naturally as the bricks. On Friday at noon, about 50 soldiers, sailors, and airmen led a horsedrawn caisson carrying a flag-draped casket—empty, thankfully—around the Circle in a tribute to the fallen. And like the national anthem at the start of a football game, the solemn march gave way to cheers and the f
Yesterday, the Los Angeles Times ran a love letter glowing travel article about Indianapolis that featured one blush-worthy compliment after another as it built toward the writer’s final gush: “Plenty to do, too much to eat, too much to see. Really, does any destination require more?”
