Earlier this year, Chicago elected a new mayor; Rahm Emanuel. Upon entering office, he wasted no time going to work on his campaign promises of improving mobility for citizens. Among his first visual changes, were the introduction of a new cycle track along a half mile stretch of downtown street; Kinzie Ave from Milwaukee Avenue to Wells …
The Cultural Trail is moving full speed ahead in the Fountain Sqaure area. I had a rare opportunity to witness some daytime infrastructure work in the city yesterday and snapped some pictures. If the pace of progress in this area is any indication of how quickly it will be finished, shop owners should not have anywhere …
Currently, College Avenue is a one way northbound street between Virginia and Massachusetts Avenues. There have been a few public calls to change this missed connection, and to return College into a two way street (which even has its own facebook fan page, which I have joined). There are also calls to instill bike lanes …
One of my favorite works of art in the city is known as “Wishful Thinking“. It’s located prominently on the edge of Interstate 65/70 which cuts through Fountain Square. The sculpture contains three panels which tell the history of the neighborhood. The panel that faces southwest displays a map of the former street grid, which …
This past Friday, I had the pleasure of joining my wife, Casey Jo Ailes, on a tour of Indianapolis’ Fountain Square neighborhood. My wife, who writes for the Broad Ripple Gazette, was aiming to cover a couple of events. Namely the KIB RE-Dome art show and also the IMOCA “Frank Warren’s PostSecret” show. The evening began at …
Fountain Square’s business district has come quite a long way since my first visit less than a decade ago. There is much more to the neighborhood than restaurants, but they are a decent indicator of the change that has taken place there. If I recall correctly, here is a list of the restaurants that were …
Last month, I posted some concerns that I had regarding the Fountain Square project. In the comments, I was contacted by the firm responsible for the redesign. Last Friday I met with Eric Fulford from NINebark, along with Paul Baumgarten of SEND, and they brought renderings of their vision for the project. There’s also a …
Recently there have been some grumblings over on Skyscraper City about the new project to reconfigure Fountain Square’s main intersection. I haven’t visited recently to see for myself, but the first two developments are disturbing. First, they made the historically accurate fountain inaccessible to pedestrians. As mentioned in the comments, this was a great opportunity …