Article Archives: Building Blocks

Building Blocks is a monthly feature by historian Steve Barnett about historic properties on the east side of Indianapolis.

“It’s not a home until it’s planted”

May 21, 2020 | by Steven R. Barnett

My father liked to garden — vegetables, flowers — it didn’t matter. Some said he had a “green thumb” and if he stuck a stick in the ground it would bloom. His vegetable garden was not exotic, just the usual tomatoes, bush green beans, cucumbers and zucchini. Oh, and he … Read More

Death Rides a Pale Horse

April 23, 2020 | by Steven R. Barnett

I was born in 1944 soon after the Allied invasion of Hitler’s Fortress Europe. While we know now that it was the “beginning of the end” in that theater of war, my mother, who had just given birth, and my father, who was on a cruiser in the South Pacific, … Read More

Roadhouses and Blind Tigers

March 26, 2020 | by Steven R. Barnett

My parents lived with my dad’s parents following the Second World War because of the housing shortage, and being the only endearing grandson in the household I enjoyed being spoiled. My grandfather frequently took me for walks around the block, and when he would head out the back door of … Read More

“. . . Put Up a Parking Lot”

February 20, 2020 | by Steven R. Barnett

Fifty years ago singer-song writer Joni Mitchell composed “Big Yellow Taxi.” The folk-rock song, while written in reaction to modern intrusions into the natural environment, later had Bob Dylan singing a “big yellow bulldozer took away the house and land,” lyrics that echoed all that was bad with urban renewal; … Read More

A Noble Experiment

January 23, 2020 | by Steven R. Barnett

John Barleycorn died at midnight, January 16, 1920. Hours earlier, a group of about seventy-five Indianapolis “Drys” had gathered at Central Christian Church in celebration of the anticipated event. Yes, the 18th Amendment to the United States Constitution had gone into effect, and prohibition, the great “noble experiment,” embraced the … Read More