In my years in Indianapolis, I made three trips to the Lockerbie Square neighborhood, which is a nice residential and merchants area east of the heart of downtown.
Two of the visits came in the course of a week in July 2007. I was nearing the end of a photography class I took through the adult learning program of what was then called Indiana University-Purdue University-Indianapolis, or IUPUI.
The instructor had advised us in advance that for our final class, we would meet in the Lockerbie Square neighborhood and conduct a walk-around shoot. This was my first experience of exploring neighborhoods for the purpose of taking pictures — a form of photo documentation. It would inspire me to do many more in the ensuing years.
I decided to visit the neighborhood early — the weekend before the class walk-through. I felt that if I did that, I’d know two things on class day: 1) the best places to re-explore; and 2) the areas to check out that I had not explored previously.
The second time was the class walk-through three days after my first visit. The third was two years later in autumn 2009. Like I had done for Irvington (see previous posts), I wanted to visit Lockerbie in autumn to capture it in fall colors.
I start my presentation of photos here with images from my first visit, on July 21, 2007. A few of the streets in the neighborhood still have the cobblestone surface.
Lockerbie Square, by the way, has a special place in Indiana history. It was where revered Hoosier poet James Whitcomb Riley came to live for the last 23 years of his life, beginning in 1893.
The home he lived in was built in 1872 in Italianate style. Today it features original Victorian art and furnishings, as well as many artifacts that belonged to Riley, who died in 1916 after the second of two strokes within six years. You’ll find a photo of the front of the Riley house and museum in the fourth picture below.
The next set of pictures below was from the class walk-around on July 24, 2007.
Above, two of my classmates reviewed pictures on the camera of the woman on the left.
Following below are the pictures I took in Lockerbie Square on the third visit, in October 2009. They include a few skyscraper shots of downtown buildings, including Regency and M&I banks (not sure if those are still the same owners/operators today) and the twin spires of St. Mary’s Catholic Church, 317 N. New Jersey St.
Coming tomorrow: Chapter 8, Garfield Park-South Neighborhood, Indianapolis
Previously in Catching Up ... on pre-blog years:
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