In recognition of the completion of the Indianapolis Cultural Trail’s Northeast Corridor, Urban Indy is running a series of comparison shots to show you how this project has transformed our city streets. Today we’re featuring three pairs of photos from one of the more interesting features of the Northeast Corridor. For most of its run, the Cultural Trail follows city streets, but a small stretch of the Northeast Corridor uses an old brick alley to connect from Massachusetts Ave. to College Ave.
You’ll note that the changes to this area are more modest than in other areas. That is by design. This alley is in the Chatham Arch and Massachusetts Ave. Historic District and IHPC was concerned about the historical nature of this alley, wanting to ensure that the overall feel was not dramatically altered. Unfortunately, the original bricks were too worn and uneven to be ADA compliant, so a close approximation of new brick was used as a replacement for the majority of this section. All the original bricks in the alley were pulled up and put into storage to be used for future refurbishment of other Chatham Arch historic alleys. However, in order to maintain a permanent historical connection, a strip of original brick was replaced on the outer edges of the trail (look for this feature in the photos below).
Enjoy, and look for a new entry in this series every day this week!
This is Part 3 of a 5-part series – see the other four parts here:
The Metro has such a great opportunity to open it’s space up to the trail. Someone should let them know that they don’t have to hide anymore. We accept and love the gays! 😉
This is definitely my favorite part of the city. That final picture really shows how beautiful these areas can be when you give them the attention they deserve. I’m hoping we can reduce and/or clean up the parking areas now that more patrons can arrive by bike or walking.
Mostly because of light and sight-lines, but also because it runs past the kitchen exhaust from Metro, I think this will end up being the least-used passage on the Cultural Trail.
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In my community-development and design-review work, one thing consistently comes out: there’s a gender gap when it comes to perception of safety. I think if you showed Curt’s picture of the completed alley trail (from the Mass Ave end of the alley) to a mixed gender group, on the whole the women would find it scarier than the men.
Which proves how important it is for Indy to develop a more transparent architecture with it’s infill projects. A better sense of security = greater livability