Six Neighborhoods - City of Indianapolis and Marion County

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NeighborhoodBeginningsIt wasn’t too long ago – only a little more than a century anda half – that the area now home to the six neighborhoodsof the Mid-North area was completely undeveloped. It waspristine land completely distinct from the town that hassince come to be known as Indianapolis. There’s even alegend that the hill on Watson Road was once known as the“High Ridge” of a stream running through to Fall Creekfrom the “Short Ridge” where the high school now stands.Legends aside, there’s documented history indicating that,toward the middle of the 19th Century, much of the areahad become farmland with a few small areas beginning tobe thought of as stopping places between Indianapolis andsomewhere else.One of these stopping places was at a very small communitylocated near what is now Illinois and 38th Streets.Although it has since become known as part of CrownHill neighborhood, it was then known as Maple Town orSugar Grove (for the many sugar maple trees that grewhere). Horse-drawn carriages would stop there on theirway to vacation in outlying Broad Ripple. Eventually thisstopping place became Mapleton, and a post office wasestablished in the 1850s.During the next decades, a street railway system ran alongIllinois Street to Crown Hill Cemetery, and its turnaroundwas to the west. Once part of the Indianapolis and WestfieldGravel Road, Illinois Street is probably the oldest street inthe neighborhood. In 1891, the railway system extendedeast along Maple Road when the Indiana State Fairgroundswas built.Meanwhile, more farms and single-family homeswere built and small residential areas were developedthroughout the area, first west of Meridian Street, theneast, some along Maple Road, some closer to what we nowknow as 30th Street. Fall Creek Parkway was designedby prominent landscape architect George Kessler as ascenic boulevard and part of a city-wide network of parksconnected by beautiful parkways. The bridges that stillstand today, along with pedestrian promenades along thecreek made the area very attractive to visitors.By the first decade of the 1900s, when the advent ofautomobiles made the area more accessible, more familyvacation homes were built and developers subdividedparcels of land to create small communities here andthere. Particularly in the neighborhoods now known asCrown Hill, Highland Vicinity, and Meridian Highland,the homes were laid out according to a gridiron subdivisionconcept which attracted homeowners who did not haveto depend on public transportation. The area becamehome to many of the city’s most prosperous, especiallyalong the Meridian Street corridor between Fall Creekand Maple Road. Charles W. Fairbanks, Vice President ofthe United States, built his mansion at 30th and Meridianin 1913. Plumbing and sewage lines were extended tothe neighborhood in 1914. The next year, the Governor’sresidence, in the prevalent Tudor Revival style, was builtat 101 W. 27th Street.By the end of the 20s, several large churches includingThird Christian Scientist, Tabernacle Presbyterian,Church of the Advent (Episcopal), Our RedeemerLutheran, and Parish Church of the Advent (later TrinityLooking north across the Meridian Street bridge over Fall Creek toward the Mid-North areain 1920. Six years later the Marrott Hotel was built where the “Kelly Tires” billboard stands.Photo from Bass Photo Collection, Indiana Historical Society.10Six Neighborhoods. One Vision.
Episcopal) had been built. Shortridge High School movedinto its location at 34th and Meridian Street and School #76(also known as the Paul C. Stetson School) opened.During the 30s, all areas of the Mid-North neighborhoodswere built up as small clusters of similar housingstock. Schools provided classes in music and art as amatter of normal curricula. Trackless trolleys (electricbuses) replaced interurban trains, and the automobile,proliferating by this time, became the vehicle of choice forthose who could afford one.With the advent of World War II, schools and otherneighborhood institutions created war-servicecommittees to build “victory gardens”, conduct bondand war stamp sales, and engage the community in avariety of war-relief efforts. Beginning in the 1940s,affluent residents began moving out to the townshipsand suburbs. The Governor’s residence moved north outof the neighborhood and the Children’s Museum, todaythe largest in the world, moved into a mansion at 30thand Meridian Streets where its current building stands.Tabernacle Presbyterian Church’s recreation program wasrated one of the five best of its kind in the United States.The 50s and 60s were a time of great change. It was thetime when the baby-boom children of the post-war yearsreached school age, and neighborhood schools becameovercrowded. Following national trends made possible byinterstate highways and federally guaranteed mortgages,many families began migrating out of the neighborhood,and homes that had once held stable single familiesbecame rental properties or sites for many new businessesappearing on the scene. During the mid-fifties, Time andNewsweek ranked Shortridge as one of the best schools inAmerica, with its progressive hands-on learning approach,illustrated by the launch during this time of student radiostation WIAN (which eventually grew into WFYI publicradio today). During this time, several other institutionsalso got their start in the neighborhood. IUPUI beganwhen Purdue University opened an Extension programoffice across 38th Street from the State Fairgrounds, aMemorial Clinic (the precursor to the former WinonaMemorial Hospital) at 32nd and Meridian Streets openedas the first private, for-profit hospital in the city, andThe Indiana Herald, housed at 2170 N. Illinois Street,established itself in 1958 as “the African-American andmulti-ethnic newspaper serving Indiana and nationally.”Students and faculty at Shortridge High School, thefirst integrated school in the State, stood in support ofcontinued integration in the face of attempts to diminishminority representation at the school.It was during this era that Mapleton-Fall CreekNeighborhood Association was founded, eventually tobecome one of the most visible neighborhood groups inthe city. The Children’s Museum held its first HauntedHouse with more than 26,000 attending. Two clinics –one medical, the other legal – opened at Broadway UnitedMethodist Church to serve area residents. Mt. Zion BaptistChurch moved to its current home across Boulevard Placefrom Crown Hill Cemetery. A plan to bring infrastructureand housing in Mapleton-Fall Creek up to buildingand health codes, the first of its kind in the city, wasimplemented in 1967 and a city-based neighborhoodthree-year pilot improvement plan was begun in 1969.Through the 1970s the neighborhoods continued toevolve. The Mid-North Church Council, a coalition ofchurches in and around Mapleton-Fall Creek, formedto strengthen the outreach of its member churches bystaying in the community. The Mid-North Food Pantrybegan as a combined ministry of the Council. NearNorth Development Corporation was formed in 1977 asa partnership among businesses, neighborhoods, andinstitutions. Job-training programs began and manyother initiatives focused on renewing the vitality of thearea got underway during this time.The place where the original Maple Town/Mapleton onceserved as way station for travelers from the city to thesuburbs underwent a significant change in the 80s. AMcDonald’s restaurant at the corner of 38th and Illinoisbrought the trend toward replacing small, locally-ownedshops with national franchises into the neighborhoods ina way that had not been seen before.Shortridge High School in 1929, shortly after it relocatedfrom downtown to 34th and Meridian Street. Notethe streetcar tracks and wires along 34th Street.Photo from Bass Photo Collection, Indiana Historical Society.The first Indiana Governor’s Residence at 101 West 27th Street,shown in this 1922 photo, was built in the neighborhood in 1915.Photo from Bass Photo Collection, Indiana Historical Society.The 34th Street gates to Crown Hill Cemetary in 1906.Photo from Bass Photo Collection, Indiana Historical Society.Mid-North Quality of Life Plan11
Page 2 and 3: ContentsAcknowledgements, 1Executiv
Page 4 and 5: Moore, Norm Morford, Della Morris,
Page 6 and 7: ByTHENUMBERS6Diverse7Action492Neigh
Page 8 and 9: The NeighborhoodCovering three squa
Page 11: and Youth Engagement. Meetings were
Page 15 and 16: 38th StreetIndiana State Fairground
Page 17 and 18: 38th StreetDr. Martin Luther King J
Page 19 and 20: Tracking ImpactStatistical data is
Page 21 and 22: AssetsNeighborhood Associations•
Page 23 and 24: 38th StreetDr. Martin Luther King J
Page 25 and 26: OurVisionIN OUR OWN WORDS | My neig
Page 27 and 28: Neighborhood+OpportunityFrom its hu
Page 29 and 30: Fall Creek has been a defining land
Page 31 and 32: Aesthetics1. The Mid-North area wil
Page 33 and 34: Business Development2. The Mid-Nort
Page 35 and 36: Crime & Safety3. The Mid-North area
Page 37 and 38: Education4. Mid-North area resident
Page 39 and 40: Education5. Mid-North area resident
Page 41 and 42: Action Steps Performance Measures C
Page 43: Senior Advocacy7. Seniors are empow
Page 46 and 47: Senior Advocacy8. Seniors will enjo
Page 48 and 49: Action Steps Performance Measures C
Page 50: midnorthplan.org

Six Neighborhoods - City of Indianapolis and Marion County

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