Sunday, November 16, 2008

Indianapolis Neighborhoods - Concord / South Meridian

This neighborhood is kind special to me; my family has a lot of history here. My Great Grandparents lived here, my grandparents were raised, married, and buried here, and my mom was born here. When I was a child, this area was quite blighted and decayed; today, it is a charming urban neighborhood with different classes of people. Unfortunately, the one thing that hasn't changed is the occasional industrial smell that graces the area with it's presence.

On Meridian Street; now a parish hall of Sacred Heart.


There's something these older structures have that is missing in newer ones.


Same here...


And Here...




Union Street


Minnesota Street...These types of classic houses are plentiful here.


My great grandparents lived here for years, my great aunt lived in the house to the right.



Meridian and Morris; my mom was born here. Time has not been kind to this place.



Nothing rings in an architectural movement like cinder blocks.



East down Karcher Street. In places where the pavement is cracked, you can still see the brick that was paved over.



The sign says it all.



View of Sacred Heart Steeples from Karcher Street.



Chase Tower in the distance from Union Street.



Look up periodically, there's always something to see.



Sacred Heart



Some blighted row houses. Wouldn't those be pretty cool after little (or maybe a lot of) renovation?



View of the Indianapolis Skyline from South Meridian.




I took many more pictures of this neighborhood that are not posted on this blog. If you are more interested in this neighborhood, check out the South Meridian Neighborhood set on my Flickr page.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

I forgot to mention that it looks like the neighborhood is in the process of having the sidewalks redone. The south end of Union Street already has them in place.

Kevin said...

Great stuff. The near South Side is unfortunate in that it is separated from downtown by 2 widened highways, as well as some funky streets that stop and start. I imagine that is a big reason this area has lagged a bit while Holy Cross has improved more dramatically. South Meridian Street and South East Street have loads of potential for mixed-use redevelopment..

Unknown said...

All those roads that were simply shunted in order to make way for the interstate system through Indy definitely hurt this neighborhood and many others for decades up to the present. Mixed use development along South Meridian would probably give these neighborhoods a much needed boost, but then again, the course of Meridian Street itself also gets diverted coming into the South end of downtown.

Kevin said...

Ya, you kind of have to know your way around or else you'll end up on the freeway. Just a terrible design...