Old Stuff

Indy and the Interstates

I spent some time in Indianapolis last weekend and was struck by the vast expanses of erased neighborhoods in the heart of the city along the interstate corridors. You can see mile after mile of amputated neighborhoods lining the edges of the corridors, most of them seemingly decaying, dirty and crime-ridden.

Even away from the interstates on the old main roads, like south Meridian, there's just block after block of neighborhoods you don't want to walk through at night. I went downtown Tuesday night to check out Krieg Bros. bookstore, about a block south of the monument. Krieg's was closed, so I headed south on Meridian intending to simply head south out of town. Before I knew it, Meridian turned into Madison, which is just an on-ramp to I-70 or I-74.

On the south side of that interstate, there's a huge old building with tall windows - it looks like it was some old gothic church. Unfortunately, it had been built in the wrong place and now seems to be some sort of large warehouse with bright floodlights glowing inside.

The next exit to the east took me to I-65 south - no escape from the damned interstates! The next exit off of 65 put me back on a city street next to a Safeway supermarket about 2 miles east of where I had intended to travel. On the way back west to Meridian, I noted a dark and narrow old street that pointed straight downtown: "Old Madison Street."

Knowledgeable sources say that Divided Highways: Building the Interstate Highways, Transforming American Life by Tom Lewis is good study of the effect the interstates had on city neighborhoods - Ken Burns even made a TV production of it.