These are just a few of the questions which will plague us through Sunday, Feb. 5, when football actually happens at Super Bowl XLVI. Or through Monday, Feb. 6, when the circus packs up its metaphorical tent and shuffles out of town.

We think we’re ready for the tsunami which will sweep into Indianapolis as early as Friday, Jan. 27, when the first   festivities begin and hopefully when the first wave of tourists arrive to spend their money as quickly as a submariner on his first shore leave in six months.

But we may not be, because we surely haven’t thought of all the questions to be answered. Such as this one gleaned from the Dallas headlines before last year’s Super Bowl: Do we have enough strippers? Turns out that the folks in Dallas worried mightily that they might not have enough strippers, if indeed there really is such a thing as enough strippers. (It also turned out that they should have been worried about snow. They were not, ha ha.) One news outlet reported that “Dallas-area strip clubs, expecting a boom in lusting patrons, are scrambling for exotic dancers to meet the expected onslaught.” One club owner said he was searching for 100 to 120 lap dancers for the big football weekend. He was further quoted that the 60 or so Dallas-area strip clubs would require approximately 10,000 strippers combined.

So while the members of the Super Bowl Host Committee worry about that critical issue (as I am), some time should be spent thinking about how the Super Bowl has already changed our lives – and especially the lives of people on the Near Eastside. Many of those programs are outlined in the news report on page 26, and have previously been chronicled in Urban Times.

But enough of long-term improvements. Let’s think about how the Super Bowl will affect us on Sunday, Feb. 5, and the 10 days before that. How much money will those danged fans really spend? How many breaded tenderloins will they eat? And will there be food left for the rest of us?

How will we drive around Downtown? Will we even be allowed Downtown without being strip-searched? Will the strippers be strip-searched? Where will the Homeland Security agents sleep? Do Homeland Security agents like breaded tenderloins?

Most importantly, will I be invited to any of the hip parties? A year ago, the list of parties in Dallas was enough to short-circuit a smart phone.

The guest list at one party included entertainment by Maroon 5, and guests such as Matthew Morrison of “Glee” fame, Marlon Wayans, soccer hero Landon Donovan and actress Hayden Panettiere, plus some other folks whom I am sure if I googled them would turn out to be famous.

Another party drew the Jonas Brothers, actress Olivia Munn, football legends Barry Sanders and Marcus Allen, basketball great Kevin McHale, and a performance by Wyclef Jean.

Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban threw a bash which drew Spike Lee and others, while another party drew the likes of Hugh Jackman and Kid Rock. Oscar-winning actress Hilary Swank threw a party. So did Chad Ocho Cinco. Porn      legend Ron Jeremy even had his own party. (Cue the strippers.)

Sounds as if you can add celebrity-watching to the list of activities coming to Indy in about two months. But who else is coming to Indy? In the meetings and briefings I have attended, two facts stick out the most:

- 65 percent of the Super Bowl ticket-holders will be corporate decision-makers.

- No Super Bowl host city has ever been within a one-day drive of more NFL cities.

The first is important because it means that the throng will include people who can in the future make things happen for Indy. No offense to the Joe Six-Pack crowd which comes to the Indianapolis 500 or the Brickyard 400, but they can’t bring us a new factory. If we’re using a racing metaphor, the Super Bowl crowd will be more like the Formula One crowd, only with English as its first language.

The second is also key, especially for the sideshow attraction, the NFL Experience, which will fill the Convention Center for a record 10 days. The theory is that our lack of a beach and/or scenic mountains will be offset by our proximity to eight, count ‘em, eight NFL cities. Ten if you’re a really determined driver.  I’d list them, but you’ll have more fun   trying to think of them yourself.

Once here, those fans will have a chance to experience much more than the heart of Downtown. Early fears that the core of Downtown would get the only boost are allayed by the mere size of the onslaught. Restaurants in all corners of the metropolitan area will be needed to feed this frenzy. Mass Ave has been designated as one of the official “Super Celebration Sites,” along with Fountain Square, and at this writing leaders of those two merchants groups are working together to get funding for shuttle buses which will have access to the central core of the action.

Fans will come, and there will be an economic impact. Exactly how much remains to be seen, and of course much depends on how many of those folks stay overnight. (For the record, even if you could book a Downtown hotel room for the Super Bowl, which you can’t, you’d face a four-day minimum.)

Local businesses, of course, will know instantly. They’ll be counting the bucks even as the fans leave town. But gauging long-term impact is a much tougher challenge. A year down the road, when a major enterprise announces its move to Indianapolis, we may not really know if the Super Bowl played into the equation.

Truth is, the Super Bowl will allow us to show the outside world our many strengths. But the scrutiny will be intense, and we’ll surely show our warts as well.

And speaking of warts, where will we hide our homeless guys? All the hotel rooms are full. Maybe the strippers have a spare room.

One avid Urban Times reader has brought a problem to our attention: the lack of street addresses on buildings. Dr. Jose N. Tord said he was searching for an address on Massachusetts Avenue recently, “and I was surprised that about 30 percent of the doors, businesses and offices alike, had no number on the street. He observed that the city has an ordinance requiring visible addresses, but no penalty for not obliging. The problem is as bad or even worse in other areas. Businesses lacking those street numbers should fix the problem, if they care about new customers. Anyone – businesses or residents – should fix the problem if they want the ambulance or fire truck to find them in an emergency. “We are not a small town,” Tord noted, “but a complete city.”

Need a place to park near Mass Ave? Try the 400 block of Michigan Street, across from the Athenaeum. Since that strip of spaces was shifted to a “reverse-angle” format, requiring motorists to back into those spaces, they have been consistently underused. The change was made as a safety precaution because of the bicycle lane running through that stretch, but it has obviously intimidated most motorists. Know those irritating guys who back into spaces in parking garages? Where are they when you need them?

Georgia Street.

The “Keep Georgia Street” campaign is being championed by Joan Hostetler, a friend of Urban Times who pens this newsletter’s “The Photo Sleuth” column. Joan, a local historian and photo archivist, opposes the idea to create a new, media-savvy and hype-friendly name mainly on historic preservation grounds. I agree with all of her arguments (which can be found on Facebook by searching for “keep Georgia Street), but my opposition is centered around another concept entirely:

The three-block party zone will become important not because of a name, but because of actions. City officials must make those three blocks important through active programming, which in turn will make “Georgia Street” an important and thoroughly recognizable catchphrase. When Mass Ave stakeholders sought to raise the profile of that thoroughfare, they didn’t change the name; they changed the complexion of the Avenue. Hence, “Mass Ave” is synonymous today with hip, with happening. Certainly there were slogans: “the art and theater district,” “45 degrees from ordinary,” “new-fangled angle.” But those tag lines advanced the cause of Mass Ave. They did not replace.

The new-and-improved Georgia Street, a party zone now the object of a $12 million makeover project, will elevate itself not by rhetoric, but by action. Certainly, it will serve as “Super Bowl Village” for 10 days in late January and early February – but what truly becomes of Georgia Street will be determined in the months and years to follow.

Let those actions elevate “Georgia Street,” as a brand, to the level of Mass Ave or Fountain Square. Not the other way around. Let the historic name remain.

But if the members of the Metropolitan Development Commission and, ultimately, the Mayor’s Office insist upon change, I urge them to completely ignore these ideas: “Peyton’s Place.” “Where’s Nordstrom? Way.” “Drunk Before Kickoff Avenue.” In honor of the last team to defeat the Colts in the big one: “The French Quarter.” And my personal favorite, “Bill Hudnut Boulevard.” (What, there’s nothing named after a mayor so integral to the Downtown’s resurgence? But that’s a subject for another day.)

And did I really write, “In all due humility”?

It has been a big month for Urban Times contributing editors. Our resident historian, Connie Zeigler, has stepped to the front on behalf of the 2,000 or so abandoned homes that City officials seek to demolish in the name of urban revitalization.

As her “History 301” report argues on page 18, Indianapolis neighborhoods would be much-better served if money earmarked for demolition was instead used as incentives for people to move into and renovate the orphaned houses.

Demolition is probably much simpler, but the alternative plan would greatly benefit both neighborhoods and families. If you read nothing else in this month’s issue, read Connie’s thesis.

Let’s take a brief moment to salute the members and staff of the Indianapolis Historic Preservation Commission, all of whom seem to have survived the commission’s Sept. 7 hearing – all six hours of it. The hearing actually lasted a bit longer, but the video on Channel 16 didn’t include a couple of brief recesses. Commissioners probably went into the hearing sensing a marathon, because no fewer than three high-profile and controversial projects were on the agenda. At least for that one night, stamina became a qualification for service.

We owe Fred Laughlin of Indianapolis Downtown, Inc., an apology. Last month, this column reported on planning efforts anticipating the potential departure of the fire station and fire department headquarters from the 500 block of Mass Ave. That report included observations by “IDI parking guru Fred Hash.” Problem is: Fred Hash is many things, but a parking guru he is not. Fred, a Lockerbie resident and Great Lakes Capital Fund executive, has trouble parking his own car, let alone helping determine standards for us all. As for the misidentification, Brooks pleads guilty to faulty brain wiring. Right now, however, I am more worried about which one of them I insulted the worse.

The 300 block of Mass Ave is, to date, the only block with the new multi-space meters which will eventually be the primary type of meters in the city.

those few Downtown blocks where there aren’t any meters – the blocks which serve as day-long free parking lots for enterprising Downtown workers.

Or the way things used to be in Lockerbie Square, before the neighborhood permit parking program.

Most folks understand the issue: Merchants need their customers to be able to get to them. Suburbs have sprawling mall parking lots; dense Downtown districts – thankfully – do not. City government has a responsibility to do what it can to help businesses operate. Efficient and available on-street parking is one such way it can do that.

But by what standards? For 35 years, Indy residents had paid a quarter for 20 minutes, or 75 cents an hour. In most parts of the city, the meters were in operation from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. weekdays only; along Mass Ave, those hours were 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Now comes the new program and the new meters. A quarter gets you five fewer minutes, so an hour of parking costs a buck. Not a huge change there – especially considering the 35-year interval between rate hikes. A dollar an hour today is a lot less, in real money, than 75 cents was in the 1970s.

But now the meters are in effect much longer, and on Saturdays. Ah, as the Bard once said, there’s the rub.

Joseph Heidenreich, owner and chef at Agio restaurant, is rubbed the wrong way. “It doesn’t make a lot of sense,” he said after the meters had been in place along Mass Ave for more than two months. “Our customers are complaining,” he said, noting that dinner business has suffered because customers now have the added expense of parking. “We’re not Chicago, not Atlanta, not New York,” Heidenreich said. “We’re supposed to be creating jobs.” He knows his customers are asking themselves why they’re not staying closer to home and parking for free in a strip mall. “I haven’t seen any benefit from this.”

Two blocks down the street, in the 400 block of Mass Ave, David Andrichik has had the opposite experience.

“They are working way better than I had imagined they would,” said Andrichik, owner of the Chatterbox Jazz Club. “It hoped it would do this – and it has.” Where until recently his customers would have to cruise the surrounding area two or three times to find a spot after 5:30 or so, now spots have opened up.

The problem Andrichik faces, which isn’t so much of an issue in Agio’s block, is the 400 block’s many residents: second-story condos on the east side of the street; upper-level residents in the Davlan Apartments and Avenue Condos on the west. Before the change, many of those residents’ vehicles ended up in curbside parking daily after 5 p.m. – and over the entire weekend. Add to that folks going to concerts at the Murat Theatre. Andrichik believes the higher prices and longer hours make it more likely more vehicles will end up where they belong – in parking lots, freeing up curbside spaces for customers.

Nic Hensley, the manager of Hoaglin To Go Marketplace, also in the 400 block, understands – although that element of the formula doesn’t help Hoaglin much, since it serves breakfast and lunch and not dinner. “I do believe some of the businesses will see a positive change, especially on my block, because of the later hours. When there is a show at the Murat, parking on the Avenue was nearly impossible.”

The downside, he noted, comes on Saturday. “The meters have negatively impacted our business, but not by much,” he said. “Our Saturday traffic has definitely seen a reduction.”

Down in the 300 block, Zachari Wilks of The Ball & Biscuit said the new meters haven’t affected his business much. “I feel like it’s an evil that we all have to deal with and there are really no other choices.” Wilks does sympathize with his employees and anyone else who works full-time on the Avenue. If they need to park on the street, their weekly costs have skyrocketed. For him, there’s been an unexpected benefit. “I haven’t driven to work since the change,” he said. “I bicycle on a daily basis, which is a better option for my wallet, the environment, and my waist line.”

Ron Spencer, executive artistic director of Theatre on the Square, likes the meters for several reasons, including that they accept credit cards. “How many times did I get tickets because I didn’t have any change?” he said. “And the four-hour expanded time limit (after 6 p.m.) is perfect for anyone coming to dinner and theater here.”

Tracy Robertson, owner of the Mass Ave Pub in the 700 block, said the new meters haven’t affected her business either way, especially at lunch, where her customers are paying only an extra 25 cents for the hour. Her night business hasn’t suffered, either, she said, “but there are certainly more comments and complaints about the extended hours than the price increase. Most people think that 9 p.m. is too late to be paying to park and I must agree.”

Robertson said she is looking forward to getting the multi-space meter boxes, because parkers can then pay for more time from any location. Her bigger problem is with Saturdays. “Business has not dropped because of the meters – but I feel like this is just milking the public,” she said. “It just doesn’t sit well with Hoosier Hospitality. Come visit our friendly, ‘small-town’ city that has so many fun activities – but pay us by the hour to do so. It just doesn’t seem right.”

What’s clear to me is that the new parking meter program has had different effects – and reactions — on different blocks of Mass Ave because those blocks are so very different. Before the change, the parking crisis was greatest in the 400 block because of not only the more dense residential base, but because of the cluster of successful merchants such as At Home in the City/Silver in the City, Global Gifts, Eye Candy, Arts a Poppin’ and Mass Ave Toys. And the proximity of the Athenaeum and the Murat Theatre. (I know, I am supposed to call it the Old National Centre, but I won’t. And since when do we spell “center” that way? I thought we won the Revolutionary War.)

Down the street, in the 600 block, the parking issue was not quite so acute until the prime dinner hour, with restaurant customers vying for space with theater-goers. But as more success comes to Mass Ave – and it will, for certain – parking will become only a bigger issue. It’s a nice problem to have, since several of the stakeholders can remember a day when there weren’t enough businesses and enough customers to create a parking dilemma.

Eventually, whether measured in years or decades, the City will need to address the issue the way it only recently has in Broad Ripple – with a parking garage. And customers will have to get used to the idea that parking within sight of their destination isn’t going to happen that often – and cannot be sufficient reason to point their cars to the strip malls.

In the end, the Downtown experience, the Mass Ave experience, will triumph, no matter what the parking meter plan.

One Mass Ave parking meter seems to have found a new home on the night of the Fall Gallery Walk. This may or may not have been some kind of official protest.

“I am going to make parking sexy,” he said, with just a touch of uncertainty in his voice. Tough task, and he knew it.

But guess what: Parking – or, more specifically, the modern parking meter – is sexy. I might just have to get a cell phone. (Yep, I’m a Luddite, resisting as I do the lure of constant connectivity. I am so prehistoric that my only computer is a desktop model, although I do have a touch-tone telephone.)

Here’s what is sexy about the new generation of parking meters, the ones coming to Indianapolis if Mayor Greg Ballard’s proposal to privatize the system is approved by the City-County Council. Cummins, vice president of parking solutions for ACS, the company which stands to get the contract, explained: You’re in a meeting Downtown when you realize that your two hours are almost up. Today, you dash out the door, down the elevator and on to the street. Soon, instead, you pick up your cell phone, dial a number, punch in the parking meter number, and pay for another two hours.

Or this scenario, one which isn’t currently available, but will be very soon: You’re headed Downtown for a meeting. Running late, you don’t want to waste time cruising for a meter. So you check the website where you are told that there’s a good chance for parking in the 300 block of Mass Ave, and an even better chance around the corner on Vermont Street. That “app,” Cummins said, is expected to be a reality soon.

Or this: You pull into a space at 6 a.m., an hour before the meter starts. Today, you pay for one hour needlessly in order to put in three more quarters to cover you after the meter starts. Soon, you can pay ahead, so the meter and your money doesn’t start until 7 a.m.

Or this: Pay for two hours at your first stop, but your business only takes 45 minutes. That receipt you get will allow you to park another hour or more at your next stop.

From a customer service standpoint, there’s no doubt the system Ballard wants to bring to Indy will be a dramatic improvement. “Everyone I know wants to swipe a card,” Ballard said, referring to the fact that the new meters will accept credit cards. (Not to worry, fellow Luddites: coins will still work.)

But is it better for the city, for the taxpayer? Ballard, predictably, said yes – although he still believes the original deal was a good one. For the uninformed, here’s the background: On Aug. 20, the mayor announced that ACS, a Xerox company, had been selected from among 16 bidders to manage the city’s parking program. The city would get $35 million now, and earn about $400 million over the 50-year term of the contract. But opposition to the plan quickly emerged, with major objections centering around the length of the deal and the concerns that the city would have limited flexibility to add or subtract parking as Downtown’s needs evolved.

The revised plan has changed in 14 basic ways, but the two biggies are these: The city can buy out of the contract at 10-year anniversaries, and the city can remove as many as 200 meters without affecting the city’s share of revenues. In many cases, meters can be relocated to mitigate the financial impact.

The devil is in the details, of course, and there’s still some indication that the City-County Council, including even some members of the mayor’s own party, will be hesitant to approve a plan that includes higher parking fees. (Never mind that the parking rate of 75 cents an hour has not gone up in 36 years.)

Ballard’s real message at the Oct. 22 meeting was this, a fact which hasn’t been stressed nearly enough to date: “There’s no risk for the city; all we do is take the money.” No infrastructure costs, no maintenance costs. And more money for the city.

Ultimately, the parking meter program must be beneficial to Downtown merchants. That’s why meters exist, to ensure parking turnover. If there were no parking meters on Mass Ave, for example, Downtown workers would occupy every single space for eight hours a day. Ask anyone in Chatham Arch if that isn’t true. Used to be true in Lockerbie Square, until the neighborhood was incorporated into the city’s residential permit parking program.

Ballard believes the new plan meets that test. “We heard early on that business needs parking to turn over,” Ballard said. Merchants need parking to be available for customers – not for their own workers or for the folks who work nearby and are willing to feed the meter every two hours.

Back to those proposed increases in parking fees. The plan would allow for rates to double to $1.50 an hour in the Downtown core, and to $1 an hour in other meter areas. To those who believe the increase is only caused by the involvement of a private vendor, Ballard points out that even if the city used a bond issue to fund these same improvements (at a cost of $7 to $10 million), the bond-holders would demand a much higher revenue stream than the existing program which brings the city only $750,000 a year. That’s money which, by state law, must only be spent on street improvements in the meter zones themselves. The new plan will give the city $620 million over the 50 years of the contract – $12.4 million a year.

Quite an increase for the city, one which Ballard said will help mayors who come after him. It’s easy for city officials to put off improvements to streets and sidewalks. “Infrastructure got cut in the city for the past two or three decades,” he said. “That’s how we got in this position.”

Ballard said the plan, which is now going back for City-County Council scrutiny, should be enacted. “There’s more money that we get now –and people get to swipe cards.”

There’s that allure again. Parking meters can, indeed, be sexy. They’re even going to be solar-powered. This should be a no-brainer for the City-County Council, if they can put partisan bickering aside and think about actual governing. The council should act, even if it does put me closer to owning a cell phone.

- The 400 block of Mass Ave had a distinguished visitor Oct. 25, when Laura Bush did some shopping after speaking at the Get Motivated seminar at Conseco Fieldhouse. Kristofer Bowman, manager of Silver in the City/At Home in the City, said the former first lady made a purchase, although she passed right by the Sarah Palin toilet paper without blinking an eye.

Bill Brooks, editor of Urban Times

“improve” the Indianapolis Historic Preservation Commission finally gets around to meeting, presumably later this fall, it will hear from a number of people with stakeholder interests in the system.

Include among that list a task force created by the Indianapolis-Marion County City-County Council. The task force was adopted, according to the resolution written by Councilor Ben Hunter, because “recent questions and concerns have been raised by some Indianapolis residents living within designated IHPC neighborhoods over the process of review and procedures as related to the issues of Certificates of Appropriateness.” Hunter added, because “it is important to educate and ensure due process for residents within designated IHPC districts.”

The resolution calls for the task force to include five members – two councilors, one of each party; a representative from the Historic Urban Neighborhoods of Indianapolis; a representative from the Metropolitan Indianapolis Board of Realtors; and a representative of the Marion County Alliance of Neighborhoods (but who does not live in an IHPC neighborhood).

As of this writing, the City-County Council has been able to fill only three of those slots – Hunter himself; Councilor Brian Mahern, who resides in Woodruff Place; and Mike Arnold, past president of the Lockerbie Square People’s Club.

Tentative dates for the four mandated meetings, along with their subject matter, are 5:30 p.m. Thursday, June 10, education of IHPC process; 6:30 p.m. Thursday, June 17, economic impact; 5:30 p.m. Thursday, June 24, resident concerns; and 5:30 p.m. Thursday, July 8, review and recommendations. At press time, those dates had not been confirmed, nor any location announced.

The group’s final recommendations would go to the General Assembly’s interim study committee, created after Sen. Pat Miller’s 2010 proposed legislation that would have dramatically altered – some say neutered – the historic preservation process. (For more background, see “Babblin’ Brooks” at www.urbantimesonline.com.)

Diverting the debate to study committees has given people in the historic preservation districts time to educate legislators about the process and its many merits. A group of neighbors vitally interested in safeguarding the historic preservation process has continued to work educating legislators. That group is currently led by Garry Chilluffo of St. Joseph, who can be reached at garry@chilluffo.com.

The challenge now is to continue that educational effort through the City-County Council’s task force, and then in front of the General Assembly study committee.

Such work will have a significant impact on the future of the Indianapolis Historic Preservation Commission, as well as the flourishing neighborhoods under its auspices. The current system, being one formed and manned by people, is not perfect. None is. But it works, and should not be fixed into non-existence.

– One of the more well attended monthly meetings of the Downtown District Task Force took place on May 13, when neighbors and business representatives had a chance to meet Karen Arnett, the new commander of the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Dept.’s Downtown District. The personable new commander is no stranger to Downtown, having served here earlier in her career. In addition to dealing with crime and public safety, she has one other worry: Where the police station will be after December, when IMPD’s lease at 25 W. 9th St. expires. Police are looking for a larger facility.

–  In the Pouring Salt Into An Open Wound Dept., the East End merchants will be looking on in wistful silence this month as they watch the celebration of a one-mile leg of the Indianapolis Cultural Trail.

Wistful, because it’s not their particular leg, the one which has kept the East End of Mass Ave in cone-zone hell for two summers now, while a different construction company working on the leg of the trail running west from the English Foundation Building has substantially completed that section, known as the North Corridor. Work on that leg, by the way, started a few weeks after work on the Northeast Corridor, now not expected for completion until November.

There’s only one reasonable explanation for the inequity: Gov. Mitch Daniels hates the East End merchants. Absurd? Follow my logic: Work on the two corridors (unlike work on the first completed section, along Alabama Street) involved federal money, and therefore the Indiana Dept. of Transportation. It was INDOT, not the Cultural Trail advocates, that awarded the bid to Sunesis, an Ohio-based company (and, by the way, not the company working on the North Corridor).

Who is in charge of INDOT? Certainly not anyone who has to answer to votes. But everyone at INDOT is responsible to, who else, Gov. Daniels. So, we know who to blame for the fact that traffic cones went up at Mass Ave and College Avenue in April 2009, even though no substantive work on that road was done at all last year. Merchants suffered, and no one seemed to care.

Gov. Daniels, of course, does not hate the East End merchants. He might not even know who any of them are. He might not even know what the Cultural Trail is, or why it remains a brilliant idea which, one day, will be a magnificent asset for the city of Indianapolis.

But, if work on the mile-long stretch ends in November as planned, the East End of Mass Ave would have endured one-lane traffic and unwieldy customer detours for 20 months. Count ’em, 20. As President Harry Truman once sort of said, the buck has to stop somewhere. In this case, wherever it stops someone will immediately cover it up with an orange cone.

Of course, it’s already a “must,” as those us who hang out along in the Mass Ave Art & Theatre District already know. The idea is that many other folks don’t – especially those who swoop down upon the city to attend such events as the NCAA Final Four, the Big 10 men’s and women’s basketball tournaments, or that holy grail of soirees, the 2012 Super Bowl.

For the tourists, the hurdle is the six or seven blocks between ground zero – the heart of Downtown and its sports venues – and Mass Ave. Not to mention the fact that one of the city’s biggest selling points for such events is the close proximity of the basketball and football arenas to hotels, restaurants and watering holes. Informing folks that Mass Ave is a uniquely local pit of happiness is just not high on their priority list.

Overcoming such obstacles is the idea of Wayne Schmidt and his staff at Schmidt Associates, the Mass Ave firm engaged by Riley Area Development Corp. to update the 10-year-old Mass Ave Commercial Development Plan.

Two public input sessions were staged in late March and early April, giving Mass Ave stakeholders a chance to brainstorm. The resulting rough draft took note of the benefits which can be reaped if consensus can be achieved. That list includes:

• Increased density and increased consumer spending.
• Creation of a transformative experience for visitors.
• Better movement of visitors around Downtown.
• And, of course, the aforementioned idea of Mass Ave as a “must-see” and “must-experience” destination.

My first thought was this: Change the corridor’s name to the French Quarter. We wouldn’t need to do anything pro-active to attract tourists. Call it the French Quarter and folks would flock like lemmings. Two problems: We don’t have any 24-hour bars or exotic dancers or Hurricanes being served from street-side to-go windows.

And it sounds too much like Broad Ripple. OK, so maybe a Mass Ave Place-Making Plan is in order.

Let’s review some of the acknowledged “facts” about Mass Ave, as brainstormed in those public sessions:

• There’s a good existing brand – “45 degrees from ordinary.”
• At least $100 million in improvements have been invested in the last five years.
• It’s now, or soon to be, on the Indianapolis Cultural Trail.
• There are seven art galleries, a smattering of impressive public art, 12 restaurants, 20 retail businesses (most notably in the 400 block), five taverns and four theaters.

Those are facts. But what about “emotional responses.” In that category, stakeholders came up with numerous notions. Among those mentioned frequently are that:

• Each block is different.
• Mass Ave is the “Main Street” of the Downtown residential community.
• We need to build synergies and connections.
• Diversity is great.

But any self-evaluation requires self-criticism. Here are some reasons at least some stakeholders thought any plan to “sell” Mass Ave to outsiders won’t work:

• Lack of parking in certain blocks.
• Business hours of operation are not consistent.
• Some sidewalks are in disrepair.
• Parades (or other Downtown events) block access to local businesses.
• Too many critical properties are vacant or are private parking lots.
• The lack of commercial activity in the 500 block, home to the fire department and Barton Tower.

Now, on to the ideas on how to improve Mass Ave as a cultural destination. As long as we’re going to the trouble to coax Michigan State fans or Ohio State fans or New Orleans Saints fans or, heaven forbid, New England Patriot fans to Mass Ave, we ought to deal with:

• The poor street lighting.
• Less than great signage and way-finding elements.
• The lack of strong “gateway” features at either end of the Avenue.
• The need to expand on the “45 degrees from ordinary” brand.
• The idea of making it easier for street performers to ply their craft.

The latter idea involves getting the city to cooperate in the permit process, which would open the door for more opportunities for the folks who have already been drawn to the area by the Indianapolis Theatre Fringe Festival.

There are far more nooks and crannies to the multi-faceted report which the Schmidt Associates people are now polishing – far too many to go into here.

But the idea which jumps off the page most easily involves lighting.

Perhaps a network of lights canopied over the major blocks. Perhaps Christmas-style lights in the trees which line the Avenue. Perhaps lighting focused on building entrances. Whatever tact is adopted, the need for lighting – both to create that coveted “sense of place” and to heighten the safety factor – is evident.

And probably more affordable than another key idea emerging from the process: A major piece of art at each intersection, even spanning the entire intersection, clearly letting people know they are entering or passing through the Mass Ave Art & Theatre District.

Once the final plan is unveiled April 29, the plan is to spend the next 10 months “building partnerships and implementing the plan.” That’s when the real work will begin, to ensure that Mass Ave merchants share in some portion of the wealth Downtown is generating, primarily with Super Bowl 2012 in mind.

And then all we’ll have to worry about are those New England Patriot fans.

– Found in mid-April by Chatterbox owner David Andrichik: Five or six flyers posted on Mass Ave trees by the folks at PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals). Problem is, the flyers were nailed to the trees – by sizable nails. Who do we contact at PETT – People for the Ethical Treatment of Trees? And, now that we think of it, the situation wouldn’t have been any better if the flyers had been Velcro-ed or gummed to the trees. Flyers are litter, by any other name.

– Coming next month in Urban Times: An update on the status of bicycling in Indianapolis, with a special focus on the effectiveness of the bicycle lanes on Michigan and New York streets.

What may occur before the June issue, however, is a coordinated enforcement blitz of new city ordinances protecting bicyclists. The laws went into effect at the first of the year,  giving bicyclists exclusive use of the designated lanes.

The effort is a coordinated program of the Department of Public Works and the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Dept.

As a bicyclist, I am looking forward to better understanding between motorists and bicyclists. A massive public relations campaign, akin to the “Click it or Ticket” billboards is needed here, so that motorists understand that bicyclists have as much right to the roadway as they do.

But as a motorist, I hope the crackdown includes bicyclists themselves – many of whom routinely streak through red lights and ride the wrong way on one-way streets.

Bicyclists are on formal notice: If you ride on city streets, you obey the same laws as motorists are supposed to obey. Ride with traffic, not against it. That way you won’t end up staring at my rapidly approaching front bumper.

Breathing easier, but with a still-cautious eye toward the state legislature, where anything can happen before the session’s end this month.

The neighborhood grassroots opposition resulted in a decision by Miller to set aside her legislation, Senate Bill 177. The legislation, which had already passed the Senate, would be pulled from House of Representatives consideration and instead referred to an interim study commission before the next session of the Indiana General Assembly.

The threat was this: Miller wants to add an appeals process to the current system, allowing any petitioner to send any IHPC decision to the Metropolitan Development Commission for appeal. The problem is that, under Miller’s plan, the petition would go to the Metropolitan Development Commission de novo – meaning it would start “from the beginning.” The MDC would treat the petition as a new case. The case would therefore not be an appeal as such; the MDC would not be reviewing whether the IHPC acted appropriately; it would not consider the expertise of the IHPC’s members or staff. The members of the Metropolitan Development Commission would not suddenly become experts on historic preservation; they would not suddenly become well-versed in the historic districts’ various (and very different) historic preservation plans.

The single biggest injury Miller’s proposal would do to the historic preservation system is this: It would remove any developer’s incentive to work with IHPC staff to create a proposal which would be acceptable to the commissioners. And – don’t let anyone tell you otherwise – that’s exactly what happens now.

In over four decades of work, the IHPC has denied less than 1% of the petitions which came before it. That means that over 99% of the petitions are approved, because of the good-faith work done by staff and petitioner.

Let’s imagine a scenario, however, should Miller’s ideas become law:

A developer wants to tear down a historic commercial building at 16th Street and College Avenue in the Old Northside. In its place would be a sparkling new pharmacy with a cookie-cutter design straight out of the suburbs. The developer has some time to spare, and is therefore willing to take the project to IHPC, where it will certainly be denied. That hurdle dispensed with, he then appeals to the Metropolitan Development Commission, which according to the legislation would treat the project as a new petition – as if the IHPC process had never occurred.

Might as well disband the IHPC and gain some office space in the City-County Building.

While there are some out there (including many developers) who would cheer the IHPC’s demise, it turns out there are many, many residents inside – and outside – of historic preservation districts who know the facts and know the value not only of historic preservation but also the existing system which has led to the recovery, resurgence and resurrection of many once-downtrodden neighborhoods.

As regular readers of this column are aware, Senate Bill 177 is not the first recent threat to the IHPC. A year ago, City-County Councilor Ben Hunter helped spark legislation which changed the way IHPC is composed. He found a champion in Miller, who has chafed over the historic preservation efforts surrounding a historic Cumberland church, which developers had wanted to demolish to make way for a CVS pharmacy. Last year, the effort succeeded to a degree, as the mayor was stripped of the ability to make all nine appointments. Now, the City-County Council makes four of those appointments.

But the effort to add an appeals process continues into this year. (Under the existing system, a petitioner must appeal through the court system, where the appropriate judge would consider whether IHPC acted within the stipulations of the law and its own established guidelines).

As originally designed, SB 177 would have done something even more heinous. It would have allowed whoever appointed the commissioner (the mayor or the City-County Council) to remove that commissioner without cause. I railed against that idiocy in this space last month, and won’t bother repeating those thoughts.

Miller’s ideas about the IHPC are still out there – and could even be resurrected in the waning days of the 2010 session. But even if the matter survives through March 14 and heads to an interim study commission, the work of neighborhood leaders is far from over.

The good news is this: Although historic preservation fans were slow to realize the threat posed by Miller’s legislation, they were ultimately strong in uniting to fight the changes, helped in no small measure by Historic Landmarks Foundation of Indiana. Representatives of every historic preservation district (many of those served by Urban Times) stepped up to the plate. Folks in Irvington and Cumberland – the two areas where incidents sparked the ire of Hunter and Miller – were especially vocal.

Most interestingly, though, was the support the historic preservation effort received from neighborhoods not under IHPC auspices. These people recognized the economic benefits historic protections had brought to nearby areas, recognizing the benefits their own areas received just by being neighbors to historic districts.

The time bought by the interim study commission will allow neighborhood activists to better inform legislators of the worth of historic preservation – and to debunk myths being told them by Miller and others. Legislators will learn very important lessons, including the fact that residents of each district voted, in effect, to subject themselves to historic preservation protections. They will also learn that each district’s rules are different, tailored to each district’s needs and residents’ wishes. They will also learn that few of the preservation plans dictate what color a house may be painted. (And, as an Eastside blogger pointed out, they will be reminded that most subdivision residents are subject to covenants far more draconian than the IHPC rules.)

That educational effort, however, will require the continued commitment of not only neighborhood leaders but their many neighbors as well.

It may be that a modification of the appeals process is needed – but Miller’s proposed de novo process is not the answer. Any appeals process must have input from IHPC, or historic preservation is on its way out in Indianapolis.

Here’s something else which came to my attention as I was channel-surfing between cross-country skiing and women’s curling at the Winter Olympics:

Downtown residents have a great deal to gain by taking part in the current effort to improve public transportation in Central Indiana – especially if a light rail line runs down the Monon Trail corridor. While mass transit typically makes us think of suburbanites and their commuting issues, any rail or bus improvement runs both ways – expanding our ability to easily move about the city, boosting our quality of life as well as enhancing property values.

The current project, known as Indy Connect, is fully detailed at www.indyconnect. org.

Public hearings on the plan began in February, but many more are scheduled in March, including hearings easily accessible to Urban Times readers – 7 p.m. Tuesday, March 2, at the Children’s Bureau at 1575 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Street; 6 p.m. Monday, March 8, at the Haughville Branch Library; and 7 p.m. Wednesday, March 17, at the Julia Carson Government Center. More details about those and other hearings can be found on the Indy Connect website – which also has a way for residents to add their opinions on the idea.

Real mass transit isn’t happening in Central Indiana tomorrow or the next day, or the day after that. But the idea is beginning to get some traction.

As for me, I vote for a bullet train from here to Chicago.

I rarely plan four years in advance, but hear this: There will be no issue   of Urban Times in March 2014. There’s just no way these creaky bones can soak up all this ski jumping, the halfpipe and giant slalom while at the same time producing a newsmagazine. Oooh, ski cross. See ya. n

Found myself in southern Indiana in early August, including a day-long stop in a town many of us may remember from that fifth-grade class in Indiana history.

New Harmony.

I remember it more fondly as part of my life from ages 32 to 38, when I lived and worked a dozen miles down the road in Mount Vernon. A very nice place to live, nestled on the banks of the Ohio River in the “toe” of the state. Nice – but New Harmony was, and is, idyllic.

So you don’t remember learning about New Harmony, site of two experiments in Utopian living? So you’re not a connoisseur of Indiana history? (There are, reportedly, 17 of us.) So you think Indiana history began with the arrival of the Colts in Indianapolis?

Too bad, because you’re missing a real treat. But before I talk you into visiting New Harmony, population maybe 800 or so, here’s what you should know: There’s not much to do there. Plenty to contemplate, plenty to ruminate over, plenty to see. Not much to do.

What’s more: That’s the plan. New Harmony is not an amusement park, nor much of a tourist trap. It’s a retreat. Not in the official sense, because New Harmony is a living, breathing small town. It is Mayberry without Andy Taylor, but with people earning livings that have nothing at all to do with visitors such as me who roll through New Harmony with an interest in history and an interest in a day without worry.

What’s so special?

The answer lies in New Harmony’s earliest days. It was founded in 1814 by the Harmonie Society, a group of German Lutheran Separatists who believed the Second Coming of Christ was imminent. That philosophy caused them to work diligently in search of perfection, in a communal fashion – which in turn resulted in a flourishing community what was at that time on the American frontier. The Harmonists produced goods, with nary a stimulus package in sight, which were marketed to major cities in the young nation, and even abroad.In time, the group’s leader, George Rapp, took the community back to Pennyslvania, where it had previously flourished. He sold the town to a Scottish industrialist named Robert Owen, who was looking for a place where he could  create another sort of model community – one where education was greatly valued and where social equality would flourish.

Yes, in Indiana.

There is much to know and be impressed about Owen’s version of New Harmony, starting with Owen himself, a social reformer well ahead of his time. And with his business partner, William Maclure, recognized as the father of American geology. Maclure was president of the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia before moving to New Harmony in 1826. He brought with him other well-established scientists and educators, traveling down the Ohio River in what became known as the “Boatload of Knowledge.”

Others included Thomas Say, a naturalist and father of American entomolgy. And Charles-Alexandre Lesueur, naturalist and artist. And Frances Wright, social reformer and writer. And artist Karl Bodmer, and educator Marie Duclos Fretageot.

Of particular interest is the next generation of Owens – especially to our neighbors in Herron-Morton Place. One of those offspring was Richard Owen, the much-celebrated commander of Camp Morton, the Civil War prison which was located in the Near-Northside neighborhood. Owen’s credentials are even headier: state geologist, a professor at Indiana University, and the first president of Purdue University (although he never did much presiding, because the school never got off the ground during his tenure).

The list of accomplishments for the Owen offspring continues. Robert Dale Owen, as a congressman from Indiana, wrote the legislation which created the  Smithsonian Institution. He also helped write Indiana’s second Constitution, and is given credit for the state’s adoption of a free public school system and securing rights for women.

David Dale Owen, a renowned geologist, supervised the first geological surveys of Indiana, Kentucky and Arkansas. Sister Jane was an educator who ran a school for girls, not a common thing in the early 19th Century.

In many ways, the Owen clan is Indiana’s first family. Not typical, not representative. But first.

The Owen period in New Harmony lasted only a few years before falling apart, a fact which should cheer all critics of socialism.

What remains today, thanks largely to an organization called Historic New Harmony, is a collection of boasts eight Harmonist sites and 25 Harmonist buildings – 15 of which are included in a guided tour.

There are contemporary wonders, too, not the least of which is the Roofless Church, a nondenominational wonder designed by famed architect Philip Johnson. There’s also the starkly contemporary Atheneum, the visitor’s center, designed by another famous architect, Richard Meier.

New Harmony also boasts a fine restaurant, the Red Geranium, in the town’s only hotel, the New Harmony Inn. Nestled just behind the restaurant is a truly unique oasis in a town of oases: Tillich Park. Not much bigger than a Downtown front yard, Tillich Park is named after the eminent Christian theologian Paul Tillich, who never lived in New Harmony but was so taken by the place that his ashes are interred there.

Then there’s Thall’s Opera House, converted many, many years ago from one of the Harmonists’ “community buildings.” And the New Harmony Theatre, a professional, equity theater. (I even had the honor of serving on that theater’s founding board of directors, “back in the day.”) New Harmony even had a movie theater, something which wasn’t there in my tenure.

One caveat: I recommend not visiting New Harmony during one of its festivals, such as the Kunstfest in September. (Yes, you read that right). While wonderful unto themselves, the popular events distract in a town where the lack of distractions is the greatest joy.

There is no shortage of information to be found about New Harmony on the internet. So much, in fact, that I could be making all this stuff up about living there lo those many years ago. But it’s true.

And speaking of many years ago, it was almost exactly a half-century ago when I first learned about New Harmony in that fifth-grade Indiana history class. It was a blue book, I remember.

Just as clearly, I can close my eyes and picture the New Harmony of today. I’m a big-city boy at heart, but New Harmony is the one small town where life doesn’t dull at all.

Imagine the frustration of the East End shopkeepers. As this newsletter goes to press, it has been 3½ months since their leg of Mass Ave became a one-lane cone zone in anticipation of the construction of the Indianapolis Cultural Trail.

“Anticipation” is the key word here, since by late August that’s all that had occurred. Everyone understands that construction schedules are elusive critters and that unpredictable weather can ruin the best-laid plans. But it’s difficult to see the end of a year-and-a-half project when the beginning never seems to happen.

And is it just me, or has work on the North Corridor – from Alabama Street westward to Indiana Avenue – far outpaced the work on the Northeast Corridor, through Chatham Arch and the East End of Mass Ave? Is the fact that it’s a different construction company any factor here?

All we can do is trust that, one day soon, those East End orange cones will start earning their keep.

There’s a big rock sitting next to my printer. An oversized paperweight which bears the magic-marker signatures of people I barely know – Lindsay, Dee, Eric, Serina. And the magic-marker words “Be More, Serve More.”

I have this souvenir because I “was rocked” at a meeting of Rainmakers conducted a few weeks ago at the Athenaeum. I was invited by someone I do know, Barbara Milton of Flanner & Buchanan. I “was rocked” by someone else I know, Troy Hanna of ComedySportz.

Getting “rocked” was intended to make an impression, accompanied as it was by Troy’s introduction of me to the gathered throng – a sizable crowd of people from all parts of the city who, thanks to Troy, now know all about Urban Times.

These folks came to the Athenaeum for a Rainmakers luncheon meeting, just one of the 42 events each month intended to boost networking opportunities.

Urban Times editor, Bill Brooks after being "rocked"

Because that’s what Rainmakers is – a business networking organization. When first I heard of Rainmakers, I thought of Rotary Club, a service organization to which I once belonged, in another city. Rotary was formed over a century ago to bring business leaders together for purposes of community service; Rotary’s networking opportunities are obvious and acknowledged, but the group’s distinct purpose is service.

Rainmakers, as a networking tool, is Rotary on steroids. Business cards are aggressively exchanged. People float about, interacting. not totally unlike a singles mixer. Amid such interaction, I met Dave the print company owner, Phyllis the reverse mortgage specialist, John the lawyer, Janet the business consultant, Dee the contractor, Jan the owner of an oil-and-lube firm, Anita the insurance agent, Kathy the sign-maker, and Lindsey “the writer and caffeine addict.” Printer; hmm. Writer; hmm.

After lunch, a Rainmakers official guided each table in a networking exercise, gauged to tell us what we all had in common. One commonality not mentioned, but which I noticed: Most of us were self-employed, while few were members of large organizations. What we have in common is our knowledge that business doesn’t always fall in your lap. Networking is key.

Barb Milton said she got involved with Rainmakers because she enjoys “the energetic network of individuals with an entrepreneurial spirit.” Rainmakers, she said, “understand the relationships of how a community grows, how a business grows.”

As director of sales at ComedySportz, Troy Hanna understands the need for cost-effective marketing. “In a world where there is no room in the budget for high-dollar advertising, word of mouth is key,” Troy said. “Rainmakers is word-of-mouth marketing on a whole other level. I use Rainmakers to help grow the business at ComedySportz by creating familiarity at the events and getting people to come see the hilarity that is ComedySportz (although, Troy notes, as sales director “I’m not one of the funny ones”).

Rainmakers literature indicates that the group works to “provide a platform for Indiana business professionals to be more and serve more.” Rainmakers organizers say they “view networking as a chance to find a relationship that will bring you an annuity stream of business rather than a one-time sale. We look for long-term strategic relationships.”

The organization – which draws an average of 60 people to each of its 42 events a month – has several stated core values, including “welcome everyone; create strategic relationships; hold members to a higher standard; inspire members to achieve profound goals; and find and recruit the next generation of Rainmakers.”

The idea, Rainmakers literature said, is to “make networking fun and productive,” with an emphasis on the “and.”

Barb Milton is involved with Rainmakers because she likes the focus on productivity, noting the organization takes steps to let its members understand how to network. She also likes the idea that Rainmakers keeps it local. “They understand that different communities have different needs.

Barb also likes the monthly “main event,” which she said “is like a family reunion. You get to see how large we’ve grown – but it also brings you back to ground zero.”

I think back to a time about 15 years ago, when I stepped out of newspaper employ for the first time in my adult life. As I pondered the perils of self-employment, I didn’t fully appreciate the relationships I had built up across the state through 2½ decades of state and regional newspaper meetings and conferences. I had been networking, and before I knew it my consulting enterprise was flourishing.

I have networking – and the power of reputation – to thank for that. For many others, Rainmakers could take them down the same road. At the very least, you meet some interesting people.

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My top-ranked pet peeve continues to be people who think they can drive while engrossed in a cell phone conversation, while I duck and dodge my way to safety. But a close second, these days, are reckless bicyclists.

I myself am a pedaler, riding mostly on errands around Downtown. That’s where I routinely see bicyclists riding the wrong way on one-way streets and generally doing other stupidities. But the most troublesome act is the running of red lights – a crime which happens with disturbing regularity.

If bicyclists want to be taken seriously – and the city is doing exactly that, continually making our streets friendlier to bicycles – they absolutely must take the rules of the road seriously. We need a major public relations campaign to tell bicyclists of their responsibilities. Stop riding against traffic – and stop running red lights!

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When the nominations for Biggest Waste of City Money come in, the city’s street-sweeping activities should be up for the award. As my example, I cite the 600 block of East Street, where every so often city workers come through to post “No Parking Tuesday” or “No Parking Wednesday” signs. The owners of the vehicles parked in that block – primarily residents of the two apartment buildings flanking the street – ignore those signs for two reasons: They perceive few options for where to move their cars, and they know there’s no penalty for not complying. And so they do not.

Subsequently, in the middle of the night, the street sweepers buzz down East Street, sticking to the driving lanes because of all of the parked cars. The curbs stay dirty, and the city gets poorer. If it weren’t so expensive, it would be very, very funny.

What’s a 51-year-old guy who has owned a fine art gallery for the past 25 years to do, now that he’s facing unemployment? “My mother asked that very same question,” a smiling Mark Ruschman said in mid-June, about a week after he had announced that Ruschman Art Gallery would close at the end of July.

“We will close about two months shy of our 25th anniversary,” Ruschman added – about the only wistful statement that would come from his mouth on this particular, sunny summer day in the St. Joseph neighborhood, where the gallery has stood since 1996. His immediate plans are simple – to stage in mid-July some sort of gallery sale, “a salute to those who have supported us over the years,” the “us” referring to Telene Edington, who for the past 20 years has been the gallery’s associate director. With a distinguished stable of local, regional and national artists, Ruschman Art Gallery has been a stalwart of the Downtown arts scene.

The gallery actually dates to the fall of 1984, when Ruschman opened it at 421 Mass Ave, just down the block from the Chatterbox Jazz Club, where he occasionally tended bar to help make ends meet. The ambiance of the 400 block was much, much different then – more desolate in spots, yet more a part of the burgeoning Downtown art scene.

Today, the 400 block sports no full-time galleries, yet is abuzz with vibrant, commercial activity. Then, a quartercentury ago, the block was at the artistic vanguard. Ruschman had company: the Patrick King Contemporary Art Gallery and the 431 Gallery, a non-profit cooperative run by former Herron School of Art students. The Cunningham Gallery stood down the street, in the 300 block.

Others came along. Steve Stoller operated a makeshift gallery in a condemned building. Brent and Bev Precious opened Precious Design between Ruschman and King. The 400 block of Mass Ave was, for awhile, the center of the city’s visual arts universe.

“It was very much a grassroots effort,” Ruschman said. “We had a sense that – without much city involvement – a lot of small business owners along the Avenue were working together to create an arts scene. There was a lot of sweat equity.”

But there was more going on, as well.

Through the Riley Area Revitalization Program, Ruschman said, the stakeholders were working to take care of the many needy people who lived in the area. But, he added, “We knew that to have a vibrant Downtown, we had to develop it as a great place to live, with amenities.” Those efforts led to the opening of O’Malia Food Market – seen at that time as a major boon to Downtown living. A dry cleaner helped, as well. “I can’t understate the importance of people such as Bob Beckmann, Scott Keller, Wayne Schmidt and David Andrichik,” Ruschman said.

He served Riley Area – now known as Riley Area Development Corp. – for two years as president at a time when the organization’s focus shifted from one of social service to the creation of affordable housing “That was a very tumultuous time,” he said. “The move didn’t sit well with a lot of board members.”

Along the way, Ruschman also played a key role in the Mass Ave Sidewalk Renaissance Project, and for his overall contributions would many years later become the third winner of Riley Area’s most esteemed honor, the Robert D. Beckmann Award.

Ruschman also thought back to the early 1990s, when he began to see a shift in focus along Mass Ave. As galleries closed, the emphasis shifted to the performing arts. “We already had the Phoenix Theatre,” he said. “Then we got Theatre on the Square and American Cabaret Theatre.” Later, the Murat Theatre was renovated and became home to national touring shows and performers.

One by one, the galleries in the 400 block were disappearing – but certainly not because of the theaters’ arrival. The Avenue was changing, and by the time he moved in 1996 Ruschman was the sole gallery left on the 400 block. He relocated to the St. Joseph neighborhood to occupy a comfortable space in a building owned by his former Mass Ave cohorts, Brent and Bev Precious. Times were good, but then came the 900-pound elephant in the room, the economy. The year 2007 was weak, Ruschman said, 2008 was worse, and 2009 even worse.

Ruschman said his business was always keyed to three audiences – established collectors; new buyers, who may or may not evolve into collectors; and corporate clients either remodeling or building new offices. “All three are not buying,” Ruschman said, “not the way we need them to.”

And so he made the tough decision, although he emphasized that he is realistic, not bitter. “I fully recognize we are going through tough times, and purchasing art is not a priority,” he said. “I’m a consumer myself, and I’ve cut back on my own discretionary spending.”

What he has not cut back on is his civic commitment. The founding president of the Indianapolis Downtown Artists and Dealers Association, Ruschman said he plans on staying involved in IDADA “and any other organization that will have me.”

“I take a great deal of pride in IDADA and what the founding board has been able to do,” he said, “and the fact that we keep getting new people involved to make it better.” As reported in the cover story of Urban Times’ March 2009 edition, IDADA’s First Friday program has become a major part of the Downtown landscape, and IDADA has given voice to the Downtown arts community.

But Ruschman’s experience along Mass Ave taught him that conditions change and that people must change with them. For awhile, the Irvington resident and family man will be busy completing some projects and commissions. Beyond that, however, he has few ideas. His brother suggested he become a dentist. I suggested pro baseball, an idea which raised a delighted eyebrow. Hmmm.

While he ponders the future, he continues to believe strongly in the arts as part of his city’s future. Maybe he ought to apply to the Ballard Administration, to be the city’s firstever director of fine arts appreciation. It’s not the city’s fault Ruschman Art Gallery is closing, but it is the city’s loss.