Cool Indianapolis Neighborhoods... Lawton Loop

Someday, one of the residents in Lawton Loop will take pity on us swooning over their home and invite us in for tea. This is such a gorgeous neighborhood, particularly in Autumn.

We always like to gawk at the huge heron on this porch:

Wow, good taste in housing and Halloween fans- we love it!

This is the residents' front yard:

This is their backyard:

More Fountain Square love

We love the era when the name of a store was written in tile at their doorway and we love that Fountain Square still has some of tiles intact, even if the store is gone.

Fletcher Place Yard Sale on Saturday

Be sure to look for the giraffe statues if you go.

The adorable Fletcher Place neighborhood is having yard sale this Saturday, September 12th. Even if you're not in the market for anything, it's a nice excuse to gawk at this historic neighborhood.

We spotted this in someone's yard on Prospect Street (between St. Patrick & Shelby) in the Fountain Square Neighborhood and it made us laugh. We'd love the story behind it (Statement making installation art piece? Stolen sign from Area 51?) but, whatever the story is, thanks to the residents for making us smile.

Changes in Fountain Square Neighborhood, Indianapolis, IN

Fountain Square has been the news a lot lately due to their big fountain makeover. Whenever we hear about changes in a classic neighborhood, we want to make sure we've documented the "before" for no other reason than we are history buffs. Despite the less than stellar photo conditions(we took some black and whites because the sky made things look black and white anyway), we took some pictures over the weekend and will add them to our collection of Fountain Square images.

This is the "Pioneer Family" fountain as it has looked from the 1980s to the present:

If memory serves us correctly, the building in the background here (Deano's Vino) was where...
...this mural was, circa about 1994 (photo from our collection) and shows the original fountain that it sounds like it will be made to look like again.
This photo is Virginia Avenue, looking northwest form Shelby Street in the 1880s or 1890s. You can just barely see the edges of the original fountain at the right. According to Indianapolis: A Pictorial History by Edward Leary, the fountain also served as a trough for horses.
This is what that street looks like today (we love the Murphy Building):

We noticed this artsy receptacle as we were at the 4-way stop at Westfield and Guilford. This is why, despite the crowds, crazy traffic, and then trend of high end boutiques instead of bohemian shops, Broad Ripple is still charming.

Cool Indianapolis Neighborhoods- Woodruff Place

A cobblestone alley:

Stand on Cross Street and you can see all 3 fountains:

Our postcards of the neighborhood. The only one that has a date we can make out shows it was sent on 12/31/1909. The message is from a girl who "had the misfortune to lose my muff either at the Interurban Station on the car between there and Bunker Hill". She telephoned the interurban station in Peru and wrote to the company at the Indianapolis Terminal Station. She was also planning on sending an ad to the "Star" the day she wrote the postcard.

We are just unabashed about our love for Woodruff Place and all of the people who own and take care of these grand old houses. What excites us about a place is when we can look at a picture of it from a century ago and still recognize it now. We love that sense of history and Woodruff Place neighborhood has it big time. After all it was the inspiration for the setting of Booth Tarkington's The Magnificent Ambersons. We had a lovely Sunday morning stroll through Middle Drive, East Drive, and West Drive; it was so quiet and peaceful. There were just busy squirrels and residents on their enviable porches enjoying the Sunday paper. We read in this article that, at one point in the early 1800s-late 1900s to keep their enclave separate from the sprawling city, the residents built a dry moat and a high wall that the locals called a "spite wall". The suburbs have their McMansions, Meridian Street has its austere homes, but Woodruff Place has soul.

Another picture of the businesses around 25th & Delaware Street because they are so funky cool.

Cool Indianapolis Neighborhoods- Mapleton/Fall Creek/Meridian Park

We've happened upon this area inadvertently a couple of times in the past couple of months so we felt like it was time to intentionally drive through it and snap some pics. We discovered part of it one day when we took a left on Pennsylvania off of 38th Street to head downtown without taking the usual Meridian Street. Then, one day, we couldn't get over to turn into the fairgrounds so we turned into this neighborhood and decided to keep driving through it because the houses were so cute. These pictures were taken as we drove south along Pennsylvania from 38th Street:

We like this little center at the corner of Penn and 34th Street:

We just lucked upon a gorgeous church that we didn't even know was there. It is the Tabernacle Presbyterian church at the corner of 34th St. and Central. It was erected in 1921 and their website has links in the right-hand column where you can read more about the architecture and history.

These are along Watson Road.

You could live here. Flock Realty has this one on Winthrop for sale.


Here's a link to the Meridian Park blog that talks about one of the more famous houses in the neighborhood, the Tuckaway house. We got to tour it on a home tour a few years ago and we look forward to the next tour that is shown on their blog to be coming up this summer. (and here's an article from American Bungalow that also mentions the Tuckaway house)