Midtown Indianapolis Restore America : Episode RAM-137 -- More Projects »
Indianapolis hosts the largest single-day sporting event in the world, the Indy 500, and is itself the 12 largest city in the U.S., with a population of 880,000. The size would have been difficult to predict when the city was founded in 1821. As Indiana's second capital city, Indianapolis was platted on a one-mile square with wide thoroughfares radiating from a central circle. Lots downtown cost $10, but people snickered at the unpainted frame houses, and scoffed at the governor's home on the circle. In fact, the governor's wife, Mrs. James Brown Ray, was horrified that her family wash would hang where all on the circle could see it. No governor ever lived in the mansion.
Ethnic groups began arriving in large numbers in the mid-1800s, making Indianapolis what it is today: a city of homes and churches. Many Germans settled here in the 1840s and established a number of social clubs, most emphasizing sports or song. Seventeen German societies are still going strong today, as is the Indianapolis Maennerchoir, the oldest continuously existing men's choir in the United States, founded in 1854. The Irish helped shape early Indianapolis, too, and their legacy is reflected in such landmarks as the Christ Church Cathedral. William Tinsley designed and built the church in 1857, and its interior features dramatic wooden trusses and Tiffany stained-glass windows. More recent is the Scottish Rite Cathedral, erected in 1929, an imposing Gothic structure with magnificent woodcarvings and a 7,000 pipe organ. African Americans from the Deep South sought a better life in Indianapolis around the time the Civil War started. Their heritage is reflected throughout the city, but particularly in the area known as Midtown. It includes Indiana Avenue, home to a rich jazz culture in the mid-1900s, and the place where the "Ink Spots" made their start. The Madam Walker Theatre Center, embellished with African and Egyptian motifs, stands as a memorial to Madam C.J. Walker, America's first female self-made millionaire. She made her fortune selling hair-care products to African Americans. The four-story building where Louis Armstrong and Lena Horne once played now hosts plays, concerts and a variety of special events. Ransom Place Indiana's Historic Landmarks Foundation is a private, statewide, not-for-profit organization founded in 1960. Its mission is to save Indiana's architectural heritage, and Ransom Place is one of those historic neighborhoods that needed saving. Built by Irish immigrants in the 1860s and then further developed in the early 1900s by a large African-American community, Ransom Place was considered one of Indianapolis ' best neighborhoods in the 1920s. By the 1980s, however, development encroached on the neighborhood and drove the residents out. Many of the neighborhood's homes were abandoned. One, a 1,200-square-foot cottage, was among the first to be slated for demolition.
Historic Landmarks Foundation responded by getting the Ransom Place neighborhood listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and then buying the cottage property from the city with the stipulation that it would be rehabilitated. By the time general contractor William Vantwoud arrived to do the job, the bungalow had been vacant for 10 or 15 years. It had lost its paint and there were more than 120 used hypodermic needles lying about. After a major clean-up, the foundation was shored up, the front porch was rebuilt, and a fresh coat of paint was added to the exterior. In an unusual arrangement, Historic Landmarks completely restored the interior and exterior of the home and then sold it to a homeowner. In response to this achievement, other homes are being restored in the neighborhood. Fletcher Place Neighborhood Historic Landmarks also stepped in to save a house on the south side of Indianapolis, in the historic Fletcher Place Neighborhood. The residence had been built in 1927, and a German immigrant hand-painted scenic murals on all the interior walls. Now the place was threatened with demolition. In this instance, Historic Landmarks offered to buy the house and move it to a new location. The organization did manage to move the home-despite its masonry bulk and girth-to a new lot a few blocks away. The walls and the structure survived the move intact, but cracks in the plaster and faded colors threatened the murals.
Deb Jones purchased the residence and then had to contend with its lack of electricity and plumbing, as well as its cracked plaster. After hiring contractors and cajoling friends, Jones soon had new electrical wiring and plumbing, and a new heat and air system shortly thereafter. For the subsequent interior mural restoration, she enlisted the help of the Garland Guild, a group of craftspeople known for their ability to remove "the damage but not the age" from historic, painted surfaces.
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