I went to Indianapolis in July 2018. Of all the second-tier US places I've been, Indy seemed to bring out the worst reactions in people. People who were fine with a visit to Baltimore or St. Louis seemed to think that Indianapolis was a step too far somehow. I did find the city's endless war memorials quite militaristic, and at night I was surprised at how the downtown area was flooded with Hoosiers of low morals out for a good time. But I had a nice visit to the city anyways, and my recollection of it is that I never was too far from a garden or greenhouse or flower bed of some sort, and I passed an agreeable weekend surrounded by living things.
Photo List (Total 306 Photos) Click bolded headers below to view, or click "just the best" for quick tour
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Downtown Indianapolis (151 photos) - Downtown Indianapolis is dominated by Monument Circle, a grand plaza in the middle of town with the Soldiers and Sailors Monument at its centre. It makes for an impressive heart to the city, and the skyscrapers are clustered around this core. The gallery starts at the nearby Statehouse, but moves quickly to the Circle, and then moves out in several directions from there. It first goes north, through a mall of war-related memorials, which ends at the main branch of the library. Then my tour moves east, to the City Market, where I ate some very disagreeable tamales. Finally it goes south and west, first along the old buildings on Washington Street, and then towards the White River State Park, with its museums and the botanical garden at the zoo. It finishes with a walk along the Indiana Central Canal.
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Other Indianapolis (64 photos) - This gallery is essentially everything that didn't quite fit into the downtown gallery. It starts at the IUPUI, which as far as I can tell is the official name after the merger of the University of Indiana and Purdue University. Down in the south-east of the city I visited Garfield Park, mostly for the conservatory there. There are a couple of photos of South East Street, then just east of the downtown area, starting on Delaware but with a concentration on Massachusetts. This area is downtown's main entertainment district and it has some splendid buildings. It includes some residential areas, including Ransom Place and the Old Northside, and ends with a few photos from the plane and of the airport.
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The Indianapolis Museum of Art and Newfields (91 photos) - Absolutely the highlight of my visit to the city was Newfields, which is an estate north and a little west of downtown. The Indianapolis Museum of Art is located there, and there is in addition an extensive grounds containing a historic house, formal gardens, and greenhouses. Also part of the larger campus is the Virginia B. Fairbanks Art and Nature Park, which has art installations in a naturalized setting around a lake. It was a fantastic and beautiful complex and I enjoyed my time there profoundly. Throughout, there were installations from Cracking Art, an Italian collective that creates brightly colour plastic animals. At first I was uncertain about these, they seemed gimmicky and juvenile, but later I found myself happy to find them sitting in some garden or in a formal living room and, well, they were highly photographable, as you will no doubt notice. These photos start in the Museum, and then move to the gardens and buildings at Newfields, and then the Nature Park.
